Two Charged in Connection to the Shooting of a Minneapolis Police Department Employee

(KNSI) — Two people are facing charges in connection with the ambush shooting of a Minneapolis Police Department employee.

Prosecutors say 41-year-old Timothy Amacher and his girlfriend, 24-year-old Colleen Larson, are charged with the attempted first-degree premeditated murder of Nicole Lenway. Amacher also faces one count of aiding an offender and being an accomplice after the fact.

The shooting happened at about 7:30 p.m. on April 20th outside the FamilyWise supervised parenting facility in southeast Minneapolis.

Lenway is a forensic scientist for the Minneapolis Police Department and was in a bitter custody battle with Amacher when the shooting happened. She has full custody with court orders limiting his visitations of their child to supervised contact only. Court records show Lenway and Amacher’s relationship was rife with domestic abuse, harassment, and stalking. Amacher had reportedly made numerous false child abuse claims against Lenway and her boyfriend. The five-year-old also told a social worker that his father instructed him to lie about the abuse. Court documents also show Amacher had offered someone $50,000 to kill Lenway in February 2022.

At the time of the shooting, Amacher was said to be inside with the child waiting for Lenway. Lenway had reportedly changed her address so Amacher couldn’t find her, and the only way he knew for sure where she would be and when was during supervised visitations at FamilyWise.

Surveillance footage shows Larson had been casing the scene before Lenway arrived and was waiting in Amacher’s Dodge Ram pickup truck for Lenway to get out of her car. When she does, Larson, dressed in black, wearing a COVID mask and gloves, sneaks up behind Lenway and raises the gun. The shooting happened off camera, but witnesses told police they heard multiple shots. Prosecutors say Lenway was shot at close range in the neck and forearm and taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where she remains hospitalized but is expected to survive.

When investigators spoke with Amacher about who may have shot Lenway, they say he suggested it was related to her work as a forensic scientist at the Minneapolis Police Department. Police also asked about the vehicles he owned and did not acknowledge owning the truck Larson was driving, the complaint states.

Amacher reportedly owns four vehicles, including a Jeep he drove to the family center. A warrant for the GPS data from the pickup truck was compared with phone location data for Larson and Amacher the night of the shooting. Investigators found the two had swapped vehicles in White Bear Lake three hours before the shooting. Amacher owns a Tae Kwon Do facility in White Bear Lake. After the vehicle swap, investigators say Amacher drove to FamilyWise with Larson eventually following.

Investigators talked to Amacher again on April 28th. According to court papers, they showed him surveillance photos of the pickup truck at the scene, which he again denied owning, “for a variety of spurious reasons, all of which were discredited over the course of the investigation” according to court papers.

Investigators also spoke with Larson, who contends she was at her home in St. Paul at the time of the shooting and denied any involvement.

Bail for both Amacher and Larson was set at $1 million. They’re due back in court Tuesday.

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