Shooting suspect’s apartment evacuated, searched late Friday into early Saturday

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR/KFGO) – A south Fargo apartment building was evacuated Friday and multiple law enforcement agencies including U.S. Marshals, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) were on hand to search a rental unit on the building’s third floor believed to have been the suspect’s in a shooting that left one officer dead and two others critically injured earlier in the day.

Law enforcement roped off the parking lot of the Bluemont Village Apartments at 2801 23rd Ave. S. just before 6:00 p.m.

People were evacuated and told they were not likely allowed back into the building until sometime Saturday.  Some were told the search of the suspect’s apartment would not start until much later because law enforcement was awaiting a federal warrant.

Just before midnight a remote-controlled law enforcement robot entered the building’s main entrance and a Fargo Fire Department platform truck with an aerial ladder and basket was used to inspect the apartment from the back balcony side. A drone was also utilized in the initial investigation before authorities entered the unit.

An FBI agent told some residents who were still standing on the sidewalk that law enforcement wouldn’t likely be finished with the search until 4:00 a.m. or later.

A number of the residents said they planned to sleep in their cars. Some found extra beds at a friend or family member’s home. One man said he called all the hotels he could think of and asked at all the missions and homeless shelters but every place he tried was booked. One woman who lived in the building along with her elderly wheelchair-bound parents said she didn’t know where they would go to stay. Throughout the night various groups of residents were escorted by law enforcement into the building briefly to get medications or feed pets that were left behind inside.

Most residents who were still present at the scene near midnight when a law enforcement spotlight and drone appeared to identify the apartment unit authorities were targeting for their search said they did not know the person who had lived in that unit.

Some say they knew the man who lived there, however. They said he had only lived there a few months and kept to himself.

One said she’d seen the man from that unit in the property management office earlier Friday, upset about something. Another claimed she’d seen him in his garage in the early afternoon hours Friday.

Fargo Police say the shooting happened around 3:00 p.m. near the intersection of 25th Street and 9th Avenue S., less than a five minute drive from the alleged suspect’s apartment. They say one officer died in the shooting and two more are in critical condition. Police say the suspect was also seriously injured during the shooting and later died. Another civilian sustained serious injuries in the shooting.

Residents were allowed back into their units at 7 a.m. Saturday.

Fargo Police will host a press conference at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Fargo City Hall for more details on the incident.