MPD crime scene investigator testifies he survived the taking pictures after the custody battle

A Minneapolis CID investigator who survived an ambush shooting outside a child care center testified Monday that she remembered falling to the ground and having a masked gunman stand over her before shooting a point-blank gunman second round fired.

Badly wounded, Nicole Lenway held her neck to stop bleeding from the gunshot wound and tried to get inside the facility for help, but she was unable to get inside.

“I found out later that they were on lockdown,” she said. “I tried calling 911 and they couldn’t understand what I was trying to say.”

The bullet that hit her vocal cords is still lodged between her ribs. She loves to sing, but because of the damage from the shooting, she doesn’t know if she will ever be able to do so again.

“At this point I’m just lucky to be alive and happy to be able to speak,” she said.

In the attempted murder trial in Hennepin County District Court against her ex-boyfriend, who is accused of planning the attack to gain full custody of their 6-year-old son, Lenway resigned seven months after the shooting, which she left intubated in the hospital, on the witness stand for days. Unable to speak to police investigators and lawyers, she communicated on paper.

Despite the harrowing details of the shooting that nearly killed her, the majority of Lenway’s testimonies detailed the four-year custody battle with Timothy Amacher, a St. Paul taekwondo master who pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted first-degree murder and aiding and abetting an accomplice in hindsight to Lenway’s shooting.

Amacher’s ex-girlfriend Colleen Purificacion Larson, 25, said Amacher, 41, pressured her to conduct the shooting in the parking lot of FamilyWise, a supervised visit and exchange center in Minneapolis. Larson is charged with attempted first-degree murder; Her trial will be heard separately in January.

Lenway, 33, said she didn’t know who shot her but knew it was a woman. She later discovered the shooter was allegedly Larson, who babysat her son before she started dating and moving in with Amacher. Lenway said she was concerned about their age difference.

The jury learned on day one of testimony last week that Amacher met Larson when she was studying with him as a teenager. Lenway and Amacher also first met at his martial arts studio before meeting and moving in together in 2013.

Lenway moved out of Amacher’s home in 2015 before she found out she was pregnant. Their son was born in 2016 and they tried to become parents together.

Lenway testified that she married Minneapolis Police Officer Donovan Ford on October 28. Prosecutors say that when she began dating Ford in 2017, her former boyfriend began filing false child abuse reports against the couple.

To quash the allegations, Ford left the Minneapolis Police Department and moved to Colorado for more than a year to work with another force. Lenway testified that the allegations continued with Ford out of state.

Amacher reported domestic violence in a case that went to trial in Ramsey County in November 2020. Lenway said Larson testified in support of Amacher, falsely claiming that Lenway and Ford abused their son.

Lenway said she was acquitted and hired a lawyer to have her file erased.

A judge awarded Lenway sole custody. Amacher was allowed to supervise FamilyWise once a week.

During the custody battle, Lenway said Larson often picked up her son because she had protective orders against Amacher.

Amacher first reported the abuse and requested arrest in 2018; Numerous reports followed. Lenway was contacted by social workers and childcare came to her home.

Amacher’s attorney Larry Reed said Amacher was not involved in the shooting. He said his client was wrongly accused in a Minneapolis police conspiracy to get him into trouble for allegedly filing a complaint about Lenway fabricating evidence into the death of Jamar Clark, who died in 2015 during a fight with City officials shot dead.

Lenway denied fabricating evidence, and prosecutors say the only person Lenway charges with doing so is Amacher. Reed said Amacher was just a concerned father concerned for his young son’s safety and well-being.

“If Mr. Amacher raised concerns … and made reports, don’t you think that would be reasonable?” Reed asked Lenway during cross-examination, a point she conceded.

Hennepin Assistant District Attorney Patrick Lofton said the allegations amounted to little more than harassment.

Lenway testified that even while she was in the hospital after the shooting, concerns about custody of her son lingered.

While discussing the life-threatening risks of surgery with doctors, she transferred temporary custody of her son to her parents. If she didn’t survive, she said, she didn’t want him to stay with Amacher.

“I remember my mother telling me she had it [him] and he would be fine,” Lenway said.

Testimony will continue on Tuesday.