From today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune,
A new kind of gang violence is rattling Twin Cities suburbs:
Police say loosely organized gangs of Somali American youths are settling online disputes with gunfire, alarming residents and community leaders.
The Star Tribune reports,
Recent bursts of gunfire have shattered the peace in these typically placid suburban Twin Cities settings: A high school homecoming game, a church basketball court, a middle class residential street.
Police are sounding the alarm about the recent shootings, saying they’re believed to be connected, and the result of a new kind of gang activity — loosely organized and mobile groups of young Somali men.
This time around, other than a different ethnicity, what’s “new” about the recent suburban gang activity? Excerpts from the Star Tribune story,
There’s little to no hierarchy, and the feuding stems from social media beefs rather than drugs, money or territory.
[F]irst generation Somali American children and young men often face an “identity crisis” and struggle to connect.
Somali kids are different. Many don’t drink or go to bars, or hunt or fish. Instead, they gather at coffee shops or department store parking lots, sometimes in the middle of the night.
These kids have come from good homes, and they have money. They’re living in houses that cost more than my mortgage.
Other factors mentioned by individuals quoted in the piece include single motherhood, youth violence, and a code of silence.
But getting back to the “community leaders” mentioned at the end of the Star Tribune headline above. Among the four Somali leaders quoted by the Star Tribune was “Asad Aliweyd, a longtime Eden Prairie resident.”
Earlier in the week, Aliweyd headlined a televised press conference featuring local Somali leaders reacting to recent events (which can be seen here). Reporter Lou Raguse of KARE-11 points out that Aliweyd is the subject of a civil state court order to pay back more than $1 million taken from the taxpayer-funded free food program by his nonprofit company.
On Wednesday, the Star Tribune published an opinion piece by Hamse Warfa, a former state and federal official, on the subject of Somali youth violence. As I point out here, Warfa spent the past two years (up to November 2025) as a senior government fellow at the George Soros-funded Open Society nonprofit.
What decides which individuals qualify as “Somali leaders”? I find it hard to believe that no better choices are available.
For example, the Star Tribune article quoted above doesn’t mention a single Somali-American elected official. As it happens, Minnesota is home to an embarassment of riches in that category of public servant.
The nation’s most prominent Somali-American politician, Ilhan Omar (D, MPLS) does not appear to have made a public statement about the recent unrest (neither here nor here).
By my count, the Minnesota legislature boasts five Somali-American members (two senators and three representatives). The Minneapolis city council has a Somali-American member, serving as council vice-president. Unless I missed it, I am unaware of any comment on the subject from any of these elected officials.
One of the suburban cities mentioned in the Star Tribune piece, St. Louis Park, is headed by an elected Somali-America mayor. For her part, Mayor Mohamed blamed the whole thing on a lack of gun control,
Developing…