Inset: Karl Holmberg (Benton County Jail). Background: Home in Glendorado Township, Minnesota, where Holmberg shot at seven police officers, hitting five of them (Google Maps).
A Minnesota man will spend the rest of his days in prison for shooting nearly 30 rounds at seven police officers serving a narcotics search warrant at his home in 2023.
Karl Holmberg, 66, was sentenced to 76 1/2 years in prison for shooting at the cops, striking five of them, at his home in the 200 block of 190th Ave NE in Glendorado Township, which is some 60 miles northwest of Minneapolis. A jury convicted Holmberg in August of seven counts each of attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault of a police officer, along with a possession of methamphetamine charge.
Officers entered his home and knocked on Holmberg's bedroom door on Oct. 12, 2023. That's when he unloaded 28 shots from a high-powered assault rifle "literally emptying a magazine," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. One officer was struck in the arm, another in the chest and hip and a third in the right hand. Holmberg hit two more cops in their bulletproof vests, "narrowly escaping serious injury," prosecutors wrote. Two other officers were at the scene but not hit by the shots.
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Holmberg's wife was inside the home at the time. She was sleeping when her husband woke her up and told her "they" were here, cops wrote in the probable cause arrest affidavit. He told her that "it was his day to die" and she saw several guns on the bed. The cops kicked in the front door and headed toward a bedroom. Holmberg then started "blindly" firing at the cops through the bedroom door.
In a Mirandized interview, Holmberg told detectives that he knew that cops were inside the home but he did not believe they had a right to be there, and told them to leave before he started shooting. Cops returned fire, striking him in the foot.
The Minnesota Attorney General's Office prosecuted the case. Attorney General Keith Ellison called the incident a "horrific assault on law enforcement."
"Holmberg's crimes demonstrate the extraordinary danger that members of law enforcement face in the course of their work to keep the people of Minnesota safe. I am truly grateful to these brave Minnesotans for risking so much on behalf of their fellow Minnesotans," said Ellison.