Fadumo Salad’s son, Mohamed, was fatally shot in April 2024 in north Minneapolis. Since then, her eight other children are afraid to leave their homes.
“They live in fear,” she said in Somali. “To this day, they tell me they don’t feel safe.”
Salad was among hundreds of people gathered at the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office’s patrol station in Arden Hills Tuesday night seeking solutions to the rise in violence among Somali youth.
A meeting to educate
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher opened the meeting introducing Andre Robinson, known as “Star Wars,” and Meechie Boyd-Curry, two former gang members in the 1980s who now do youth outreach for his department. It was responsible adults who helped steer Robinson and Boyd-Curry away from gang life, the sheriff said. The goal is to help do the same for Somali youth.
“Children need a responsible adult role model that they perceive is concerned for their needs and values,” Fletcher told the crowd. “That’s how children succeed, but some kids don’t have that.”
Ramsey County authorities told attendees that there are more than a dozen Somali gangs. That includes a large Minneapolis contingent and several other groups based in metro area suburbs like Burnsville, Apple Valley, Shakopee and Hopkins.
“We see, before incidents, kids posing with firearms and switches and whatever else on social media. That’s kind of the way to talk smack to each other,” said Ben Seidl, a Ramsey County sheriff’s gang investigator. “When they see each other at events, they’re flashing gang signs, they’re talking smack again and there are guns everywhere.”
Fletcher showed more than a dozen videos pulled from social media showing Somali youth holding guns with extended magazines and laser attachments, throwing up gang signs and fighting in large groups. The presentation also featured mugshots and screenshots from several charging documents, which included the names of some of the gangs and outlined the retaliatory nature of the violence.
The purpose, the sheriff told the crowd, was to show parents why law enforcement classifies these groups as gangs, and to reinforce that the problem exists before brainstorming solutions to the problem.
“The primary reason we’re here is to help the Somali community understand what’s going on,” Fletcher said. “We can’t expect them to help us solve the problem without educating them.”
Parents peppered Ramsey County officials with questions like: Why is the behavior by Somali youth being classified as gang activity? Where are they getting their guns? And why are youth being arrested but immediately released in many cases?
Though much of the meeting was focused on youth violence, some community members reiterated their outrage at Fletcher’s comments about the issue earlier this month. Imam Hassan Jama of Al-Hikmah Islamic Center in Minneapolis confronted Fletcher, asking the sheriff if he would apologize for what he said and whether he has ever singled out any other community in the same way.
“As the Somali community, we need help, but this problem is way bigger than us,” Jama said. “This is an American problem.”
Fletcher refused to apologize and credited his comments for starting the conversation and bringing more attention to the issue. He also pushed back against the claim that he hasn’t singled out other communities, and pointed to work he did in the 1990s to curb Asian gang violence, arguing that community-specific problems require community-specific solutions.
Community debrief
Mohamed Adam, an 18-year-old Burnsville resident, told Sahan Journal that he went to the meeting to help find solutions to stop the violence, some of which he has personally witnessed.
“There’s been a lot of waves of violence and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to stop,” Adam said.
Adam said he heard some good ideas during the meeting but “we’re not going down to the root” of the issue. One solution, he said, should be stricter sentences for offenders.
“Prosecutors have to stop being nice,” he said. “They’re letting guys catch a murder and then somehow he’s getting out in eight years on probation? It’s absolutely vile and disgusting.”
Business owner Abdimalik Abdi, 26, said he learned of Fletcher’s meeting after seeing a news conference on Tuesday where Somali community leaders denounced the sheriff’s comments. He said he went to be part of the solution, but was disappointed many of those outraged at criticism of the community were absent.
“They don’t keep that same energy when these crimes and stuff are happening,” Abdi told Sahan Journal. “I wanted to see them here today because (Fletcher) said this was like an olive branch to get everybody to a solution.”
Abdi, who runs a group that delivers care packages to people experiencing homelessness and substance abuse disorder, said he thinks Somali youth’s access to guns is a large part of the problem, and that authorities need to find a way to get them out of kids’ hands.
“How are these kids getting these guns and these switches? Someone’s supplying them,” he said. “Find the suppliers, and once you cut that off, help the youth find something else. They’re just looking for a sense of belonging.”
Mustafa Warsame, 47, attended the meeting on behalf of his friend Hassan Hersi, whose 19-year-old son was shot and killed in Burnsville in January.
Warsame told Sahan Journal he was stricken by how young the kids in the videos Fletcher showed were. He also said he can’t understand how law enforcement can have videos of kids holding guns with their faces uncovered, but won’t go arrest those kids and take the guns from them.
“They know they are going to use the guns to kill people,” he said. “That tells me we are a community that no one cares whether we kill each other or not.”
The meeting Tuesday is a good start, Warsame said. He appreciates Fletcher giving Somali parents an opportunity to learn about what is going on and ultimately how to address it.
“What he said about us is not important. What is important to me is what he did for us by bringing us here,” he said. “These people who are yelling at him have never held a meeting.”
Fadumo Salad said she and her family live in pain at the memory of the son she lost. Though her son’s killer was caught and sent to prison, the government should at least follow up on Somali families that have lost children, she said.
“It’s not fair. My son was working, he finished school, he was a taxpayer,” she said. “They should do something for those of us left behind.”
