Crime & Safety
Austin Man Named as Person Killed in Officer-Involved Shooting
Michael Regner Tray was 27 when he died.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner has identified a 27-year-old Austin, MN, man as the person who died in Wednesday’s officer-involved shooting.
Michael Regner Tray died of multiple gunshot wounds at the Claremont Apartments on 10761 Smetana Road. His time of death is listed as 9:01 p.m. Wednesday.
Officers went to the complex at 8:24 p.m. following a report of a man with a gun, a Minnetonka news release stated. Upon arrival, they encountered a man with a firearm in an underground garage and shots were fired.
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Minnesota court records do not show any violent convictions for Tray. Someone with the same name, age and home city had a 2010 misdemeanor conviction in Stearns County for refusing to submit to a chemical test used to confirm drunken driving suspicions.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting, and further details about the circumstances of the incident are not being released while the case remains under investigation.
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The names of the Minnetonka Police Department officers involved in the shooting will be released early next week. The city declined to identify the number of officers involved until that time.
Michael Strunk, who’s been friends with Tray for five years, said friends and family can’t understand what happened. Strunk met Tray during undergrad at St. Cloud State, where Tray was studying bio-medicine. Since that time, he’s always known Tray as a person who would go out of his way to help others.Strunk said Tray was an extroverted, outgoing guy who liked meeting new people. He was part of a group of guys who had fun doing typical guy things—grilling, shooting hoops at the gym on weekends, playing football.
Tray was the guy you called if you had a bad day or the one who stepped in to calm people down, he said.
“We look at his pictures, and we can’t fathom it,” he said. “He was never a violent guy at all. He’s literally the guy that gives a stranger the shirt off his back.”
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