In the hours before St. Paul police officers shot a 40-year-old man at a busy intersection, prosecutors say he returned to a Minneapolis sober home and was told he would be subject to a drug test.

He threatened people in the room and shot another resident, according to an attempted murder charge filed Tuesday.

Earl Bennett, 40, is also a suspect in two homicides and another shooting at a Minneapolis homeless encampment on Sunday, Minneapolis police said Tuesday.

St. Paul police officers apparently didn’t know Bennett’s identity or that he was a suspect in Minneapolis when they encountered him. Bennett, who is charged with pointing a gun at St. Paul police on Monday night, was in critical but stable condition at Regions Hospital as of Tuesday morning.

Community activists called on officials Tuesday to immediately release all police body camera footage in Bennett’s shooting.

Trahern Crews, of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, said people want to see the video because they’re “traumatized about what’s happening in their neighborhood,” and they want to understand why it happened.

Bennett was prohibited from having a gun because of past convictions and he had a past encounter with law enforcement that nearly led to him being shot by a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy in 2015. In that case, he was accused of attempting to disarm a deputy at Regions.

Two killed, two wounded in Minneapolis

On Sunday, Minneapolis officers responded to a triple shooting at a small homeless encampment along the railroad tracks in the 4400 block between Hiawatha and Snelling avenues. Two men died at the scene and a woman was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries from the shooting. Bennett is a suspect in the shootings, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara announced Tuesday.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Bennett on Tuesday with attempted first-degree murder, with premeditation, in Monday’s shooting in Minneapolis.

Officers responded to a report of a shooting at a sober living facility in the 3500 block of Columbus Avenue about 5:15 p.m. and found a resident who’d been shot in the neck. Two people identified Bennett, a resident of the home, as the shooter. They said Bennett “showed obvious signs of intoxication when he returned to the housing facility that evening,” according to the criminal complaint.

When staff told Bennett about a drug test, he became upset in a communal dining room. He closed the window shades and threatened several people in the room, saying, “Who wants it first?” the complaint said.

Bennett pulled a gun, shot a resident who was sitting in a chair and left, according to the complaint.

Bennett is hospitalized under police observation and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office is seeking a warrant for his arrest to be carried out “when medically appropriate,” the complaint said. The prosecution will be seeking high bail “due to public safety concerns and because (Bennett) is presently under investigation for other shootings.”

Police in Minneapolis shared information with law enforcement across the state about the suspect after the two shootings, according to O’Hara.

In addition to the homeless encampment shooting that Bennett is suspected in, there was another deadly shooting at a homeless encampment in Minneapolis over the weekend. “Investigators have not ruled out a connection but do not believe at this time that there is” one, said Minneapolis Police Sgt. Garrett Parten on Tuesday.

Shooting by police in St. Paul

In St. Paul, officers were called to Pierce Street near University Avenue just before 7:45 p.m. Monday. Several people reported shots had been fired in the area.

“We have no information to indicate any of our officers knew his identity or of his past actions prior to encountering him,” said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

An officer dispatched that he saw a man, identified as Bennett, walking south on Snelling Avenue toward University Avenue with a gun in his hand, according to a criminal complaint against Bennett filed Tuesday in Ramsey County.

The officer also reported that Bennett wouldn’t drop the gun and kept walking. He held the handgun to his own head, walked in the middle of traffic lanes and on the median between lanes on Snelling Avenue. He stopped in the middle of light-rail train tracks. A witness reported that Bennett told the police to shoot him.

Officers negotiated with him to put the gun down, but he would not, Ernster said.

An officer fired nonlethal rounds at Bennett to get him to drop the gun. Bennett pointed his gun at officers, and more than one officer fired at him, according to the complaint.

“Surveillance video showed Bennett pointing the handgun parallel to the ground in the direction where officers had taken up position,” the complaint said.

A 9 mm handgun that Bennett dropped after he was shot did not hold a magazine; it had a round of ammunition in its chamber, the complaint said. The handgun has been tied to casings fired in the Minneapolis homicide.

Bennett has eight past felony convictions: five first-degree aggravated robberies, along with receiving stolen property, fleeing police in a motor vehicle and attempted escape. The aggravated robbery convictions make Bennett ineligible to possess firearms or ammunition.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged Bennett Tuesday with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, for pointing a gun at police, and possession of a firearm by a person ineligible because of a conviction for a crime of violence.

Jessica Nordrum was in the area Tuesday and said she witnessed the situation Monday night. She said she saw a man coming down the street with a gun and he was yelling, but she wasn’t sure what he was saying. She said she wanted to see police having a conversation with him and asking how they could help him before the situation escalated.

“You could tell that he didn’t want to shoot them or he would have done it right away or he wouldn’t have been holding the gun in the air or to his own head,” Nordrum said.

Body camera footage

Earlier Tuesday, before Bennett’s name was released and information about the Minneapolis shootings was made public, community groups held a news conference and called on officials to immediately release all body camera footage in the St. Paul shooting.

Witnesses “have stated that it appeared to the community that this was a mental health crisis,” said Toshira Garraway, founder of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence. “… We are not here to make assumptions this morning, but we know that we are in a time of history where we cannot afford to withhold the truth for any lingering time at all.”

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting by police.

St. Paul police said Tuesday that a determination hasn’t been made when they will release footage. In the last shooting by St. Paul police, of a suspect in the Lowertown homicide of a woman working on an art project in September, the police department released video from body cameras five days later.

Chauntyll Allen, with Black Lives Matter Twin Cities and a St. Paul school board member, said while there was a “worldwide uprising” over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, St. Paul “has neglected to do any sort of police reform.”

A mental health response team is needed because, when people are suicidal and have a weapon, police respond with force, Allen said.

Garraway, Allen and others in the group went to Mayor Melvin Carter’s office Tuesday morning to hand-deliver a letter formally requesting the names of the officers who were involved, unredacted body-camera footage and other public information. Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher said Carter was in a meeting, accepted the letter and met with them.

“Five days is too long for the community to understand and know exactly what happened,” Garraway said to Tincher of the videos.

Past encounter with law enforcement

In 2015, Bennett pleaded guilty to attempted escape from custody and fourth-degree assault of a peace officer after he was accused of punching a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy in the face and attempting to disarm him at Regions Hospital.

The deputy yelled for Bennett to let go of his holstered gun and another deputy arrived to assist. He grabbed Bennett in a bearhug from behind, but Bennett maintained a grip on the other deputy’s gun. When something fell from the deputy’s gun belt, the deputy thought Bennett had successfully disarmed him and yelled, “He’s got my gun!”

The other deputy pulled his firearm and pointed it at Bennett, telling him three times, “Drop the gun or I’m going to shoot you!” according to a criminal complaint from the time. Bennett responded, “I let it go,” and the deputy handcuffed him.

The hospital was put into lockdown during the incident. Bennett was sentenced to four years in prison.