The crash scene where Derrick Thompson’s SUV barreled into a car, killing five Somali American women, was “chaotic” and “horrific,” witnesses testified Friday in his murder trial.
Dorinda Pacheco lives on 2nd Avenue near Lake Street where the crash occurred about 10 p.m. on June 16, 2023. She was outside with her dog getting the mail when Thompson’s 6,000-pound Cadillac Escalade SUV T-boned the women’s Honda Civic.
She testified that she heard a “screech” and a “big boom.” She said the SUV hit a light pole and spun around after it collided with the Honda Civic.
“It was like in a movie,” Pacheco testified.
Thompson is charged with killing Sahra Gesaade, 20; Salma Abdikadir, 20; Sagal Hersi, 19; Siham Odhowa, 19; and Sabiriin Ali, 17. The five friends had just been preparing to attend a wedding the next day.
Thompson faces 10 counts of criminal vehicular homicide and five counts of third-degree murder.
Body-worn camera footage played in court
Prosecutors say Thompson was driving at 100 miles an hour when he ran a red light at the south Minneapolis intersection and struck the women.
Minnesota State Patrol trooper Andres Guerra testified Thursday and Friday that he first spotted the Escalade speeding on Interstate 35W, and began to follow the vehicle without his lights or sirens activated. He struggled to catch up as the SUV swerved across multiple lanes of traffic and exited the highway.
“Crash, crash, crash, crash,” Guerra can be heard saying on his squad camera video, which was played in court.
Guerra’s body-worn camera footage was played in court, showing him exit his squad and running to the vehicles. He frantically asked bystanders what they saw. They told him someone fled the Escalade on foot.
A woman in the courtroom gallery leaned forward and placed her head in her hands as an image of the mangled Honda Civic was shown on a TV screen.
“Stay away, stay away,” Guerra tells a bystander in the body-worn camera footage.
Guerra testified that it was immediately apparent that all of the occupants in the Honda Civic were dead. Other law enforcement officers then arrived on the scene to help locate the person who fled the SUV.
Minneapolis resident Mohamed Mohamed was driving near the intersection at the time of the crash.
“I heard this loud explosion, like this loud boom,” he testified. “I knew it was a bad, horrific accident, especially when I saw the car — how bad it was.”
Mohamed said he took out his cell phone and started to record a video, which captures a man approaching him and asking for a ride, which Mohamed declines. Mohamed identified the man Friday as Thompson.
Pacheco testified that she saw a man exit the driver’s side of the SUV and walk just a few feet away from her. He then limped down an alley, holding his leg. She shared the information with an officer at the scene, and pointed them in the man’s direction.
Police later apprehended Thompson in a nearby Taco Bell parking lot, and had Pacheco identify him. She testified that she asked police to make him walk so she could see him limp. When he limped, she said she thought it was the same man.
“Just to be clear, did you identify the man just to make the police happy or because you were feeling pressured?” asked Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Joseph Paquette.
“No,” she replied.
Paquette asked if she was still sure about her identification of the man.
“I am positively sure,” she said.
When Paquette asked if the man she saw was present in the courtroom, Pacheco pointed to Thompson.
“Yes, he is,” she said.
Thompson allegedly played off injuries
Minneapolis police officers Lamandre Wright and Lewis Bady testified Friday that they were a few blocks away and responded to the crash.
“It was a chaotic scene,” Wright testified.
Wright said he was told that someone had run to the Taco Bell parking lot. When Wright, Bady and other officers arrived there, Wright testified, they found a sweaty Thompson bleeding from injuries on his forehead and hand.
Bady’s body-worn camera footage was played in court, which included audio of him asking Thompson why he was bleeding.
“I cut myself,” Thompson replies. “This is old.”
The cut looks “fresh,” Bady tells Thompson.
The camera footage shows Thompson giving officers his driver’s license. Shortly afterward, they hear a description of the person who fled the crash scene broadcast over police radio. Officers then handcuff Thompson and tell him he matches that description.
The footage also depicts Bady carrying out the suspect identification with Pacheco, who was in the back of a squad car.
“You 100 percent saw him running from the crash?” Bady asks Pacheco in the video.
“Yes,” Pacheco replies.
Thompson’s defense attorney, Tyler Bliss, asked Bady if he had ever been warned that doing a suspect identification in the field, also known as a “show-up,” could “corrupt” any future suspect line-ups. Bady said yes.
Bliss asked Bady if he already had enough evidence to arrest Thompson, since he had seen a rental agreement for the SUV with Thompson’s name on it. Bady said he believed he did.
“You still conducted the show-up?” Bliss asked.
“Yes,” Bady replied.
Bady testified that it was not his decision to do the show-up, and that they are often conducted to gather more evidence and confirm witness statements. Officers try to speak neutrally to witnesses who are making the identifications, he said.
‘Everything was taken away from her’
Sahra Gesaade’s younger sister, Rukia Gesaade, 21, took the witness stand late Friday afternoon to give “spark of life” testimony, which is designed to share information about the victims with jurors. The two were close in age, about a year apart.
“Honestly, I can’t really put Sahra into words,” she said. “She was everything, a mentor, a built-in best friend.”
Rukia testified that she was at home sleeping when she was hurriedly awoken by her brothers the night of the crash. They arrived at the scene at about 2 a.m., still chaotic with ambulances, police tape and people weeping.
She eventually learned that her sister was in the car, and had passed away.
Rukia testified about her sister’s ambitions, noting that she was about one semester away from finishing her bachelor’s degree, and had hoped to become a doctor one day.
As the children of immigrants, Rukia said, she and her siblings try to make their parents proud.
“Everything was taken away from her, and not just her, but four other sisters,” Rukia said of the other women who were killed.
Family members and loved ones watching in the gallery sobbed as Rukia spoke. Multiple jurors cried, wiping away tears as she testified.
At the end of her testimony, a photo of Sahra Gesaade and her mother was shown to jurors on a large TV screen.
“They are devastated,” Rukia said of her family. “Every day we wake up, we know she’s never going to come home again.”
