Last Friday night, shots rang out at a high school homecoming game in Eden Prairie. Two young men were wounded. Police say the shooting appears to have been targeted, and no arrests have been made.
Ten days earlier, on September 22, someone fired from a car at teenagers playing basketball outside a church in Edina. By the grace of God, no one was hurt. Afterward, Edina Police Chief Todd Milburn said this on the record:
“For the second time in recent months, Somali teens and young adults have been the targets of or have had some level of responsibility for shootings in community gathering places.”
He called it “consistent with a pattern of gang violence throughout the region.”
https://patch.com/minnesota/edina/somali-teens-young-adults-tied-2nd-edina-shooting-2-months-police-chief-says
In July, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said there had been 14 Somali homicides and more than 100 Somali shootings in two years, all gang-related. His office counts 12 Somali gangs. To his credit, he also said this is about 300 kids, not the whole community.
https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/ramsey-county-sheriff-somali-gangs/
Here is my concern. The last statewide count of gang members by background in Minnesota was in 2007. Since then, no official number has been published. Nearly twenty years. In that time we’ve seen al-Shabaab recruitment out of the Twin Cities, the Feeding Our Future fraud, with more than $240 million stolen from a program meant to feed children and 66 people convicted, and now shootings at ball games and church courts.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/feeding-our-future-ringleader-sentenced-500-months
We do have numbers on public assistance. In Minnesota, 54 percent of Somali immigrant households receive food stamps, compared with 7 percent of native-born households. 73 percent are on Medicaid, compared with 18 percent.
https://cis.org/Report/Somali-Immigrants-Minnesota
In fairness, about 72 percent of Somali Minnesotans are in the labor force, more than the state average. Many are working hard. Needing help is not the same as committing fraud, and I won’t pretend it is.
https://politifact.com/factchecks/2026/feb/02/donald-trump/bongino-minnesota-somali-employment-poverty-benefi/
But this is the point. We count who gets help. We don’t count who’s doing the harm. You can’t fix what you refuse to measure.
I’m not an expert. I’m an immigrant who loves this state and this country. And I believe coddling is just as harmful as neglect. Looking away to spare feelings doesn’t protect anyone, least of all the young people being pulled into gangs or the families who came here to get away from exactly this kind of violence. They deserve better than our silence.
So here is my call to the officials we entrust with the first job of government, keeping us safe. Our governor, our legislators, our county attorneys, our sheriffs and our police chiefs:
FIERCELY gather the data. Publish it. Then enforce the laws already on the books, without fear and without favor.
That’s stewardship. Not on your knees, but with a spine.
If you’re a Minnesotan, ask your representatives one question: when will we see current, official numbers?
Is it grateful to look away? Or is it grateful to tell the truth and fix it?
Grateful or Ungrateful?
LIVE GRATEFUL 🇺🇸
Gratitude starts in the spine, not on the knees.
— A Grateful Immigrant
