Neighbors’ feud boils over into attempted murder charge in Savage

An argument between neighbors escalated into a shooting that seriously injured one person.

Michael Moss, 46, is facing multiple charges for an incident in Savage earlier this week, including attempted second-degree murder with intent, first-degree assault and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

READ MORE: Multiple people in custody after shots fired in Savage, 1 seriously hurt

Police said they found a man who had been shot on the front porch of a house on Utica Avenue. According to court records, the man indicated he had gone to the man’s house, later identified as Moss, to ask why he wanted to shoot his daughter.

Moss was later taken into custody after authorities created a perimeter around his house and ordered him to surrender.

Accounts of what led Moss to shoot the man differ, with multiple people providing investigators with different versions of what happened.

According to Moss, the incident began when a woman walking her dog couldn’t control the animal, resulting in his wife being pushed and knocked onto the street. Moss said his wife had threatened to tase the dog if the woman was not able to bring it under control. The couple then returned home after picking up their daughter from school.

The woman who encountered Moss and his wife reportedly told police that her dog had run around Moss’s wife’s legs, attempting to play with another dog, causing her to fall down. The woman initially claimed that Moss’s wife had pulled out a handgun from a purse, but later told police she had never actually seen a gun. She did, however, say Moss’s wife had threatened to shoot her dog.

After arriving home, she told the man what had happened, and he said it was unacceptable and left the house. A few minutes later, he came back to the house after being shot.

According to the man who was shot, he claimed he had not been armed when he confronted Moss and his wife, who he claimed threatened to shoot his daughter. When authorities asked if Moss had said anything before shooting him, the man claimed Moss hadn’t.

However, according to Moss and his wife, after they returned home, a man began knocking on the door, yelling and screaming profanities and slurs. Moss said he and the man continued to argue, and at one point his wife also walked to the area, now wearing a pistol holster with a firearm in it.

During the confrontation, Moss claimed the man pushed his wife into him and began to pull out a firearm. Moss said he took the gun from the holster his wife was carrying and fired a shot in the air above the man’s head before he began shooting at the man, who then ran back to his house. Moss said he acted in self-defense.

A search warrant was issued for both Moss’s house and the house of the man who was shot. At Moss’s house, police located a pistol and pistol holster.

At the other man’s house, police said they located multiple firearms in the building, including AR-15s, Draco rifles, multiple handguns and a pistol that appeared to have dried blood on it.

A security camera inside Moss’s house did not capture the shooting, but it did capture yelling, followed by Moss and his wife returning to a living room, where Moss’s wife asks why he did “that.”

Due to both men’s past criminal history, neither was supposed to be in possession of firearms and both men have been arrested and charged. At this time, authorities have not released the identity of the other man.

According to both parties, neither had interacted before the events that unfolded on Wednesday.
The post Neighbors’ feud boils over into attempted murder charge in Savage first appeared on KSTP.com 5 Eyewitness News.