Minnesota Sheriff Demands Somali Gang Task Force After Shooting Causes Homecoming Cancellation
A Minnesota sheriff is calling for a regional crackdown on Somali gang violence across the twin Cities, emphasizing the need for more arrests, intelligence sharing, and prosecution efforts. Sheriff Bob Fletcher of Ramsey County advocates forming a regional task force, highlighting that criminal groups operate across jurisdictions and require coordinated responses.He specifically urges other agencies, including Hennepin County officials like Sheriff dawanna witt and County Attorney Mary Moriarty, to join the effort. Witt dismisses Fletcher’s claims, stating her department is already focused on gang activity and passing tips to other agencies. Tensions arise amid recent violent incidents, including a shooting during a homecoming football game in Eden Prairie that injured two Somali teens, which police linked to gang violence. The incident led to the game’s suspension and the cancellation of a dance, with community concerns about Somali gang activity growing. Local leaders, including Eden Prairie Mayor Ron Case, request a collective approach involving police, prosecutors, schools, and community leaders to combat youth gang involvement. Fletcher estimates around 300 youths are involved in gangs, representing a small segment of the sizable Somali population in the area, but asserts that arrests are necesary to deter violence. Meanwhile, other municipalities like Edina also face similar issues, with residents citing spillover from Minneapolis and criticizing policies they believe foster crime. authorities are calling for a joint effort to address gang-related violence, though responses and perspectives differ among officials and communities.
A Minnesota sheriff is demanding a metro-wide crackdown on Somali gang violence in the Twin Cities. The sheriff who actually covers the suburb where a homecoming game was shot up on Friday is telling him to stay on his own side of the river.
Bob Fletcher is the sheriff of Ramsey County, the St. Paul side of the Twin Cities. At a Tuesday news conference, he backed the idea of a regional task force and asked other agencies to join in staffing it.
He said the criminal crews move from suburb to suburb, across jurisdictional lines, and that police will need d intelligence, more arrests, and prosecutors willing to take the cases. He named two Hennepin County officials he wants in: Sheriff Dawanna Witt and County Attorney Mary Moriarty.
“We need to go out and get the perpetrators,” Fletcher said, according to KSTP-TV in St. Paul.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher threw his support behind a regional task force to tackle Somali gang violence while blaming weak prosecution of crime for letting the issue fester, specifically calling out Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. https://t.co/JsdnHJ91du
— FOX 9 (@FOX9) October 7, 2026
Witt runs the sheriff’s office in Hennepin County, which covers Minneapolis and the western suburbs, including the city where Friday’s shooting happened. At her own news conference, she brushed Fletcher off.
“He just has a habit of talking about stuff he don’t know nothing about,” she said, according to KMSP-TV in St. Paul. “So he shouldn’t mind Ramsey County business.”
KMSP reported that she described her office as already shifted toward gang work and said it was already passing tips to other departments.
The game was Friday night in Eden Prairie and gunfire outside the stadium emptied the stands during a homecoming matchup, KSTP reported. Two people were hit. Police said the wounds were not life-threatening, the victims were not students at either school, and the shooting appeared to be targeted.
The game was suspended.
KSTP reported that three law enforcement sources said the gunfire was tied to Somali gang activity. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the two wounded were Somali teens.
The school called off Saturday’s homecoming dance. Principal Jaysen Anderson wrote families in a post that a dance less than a day after “a trauma in our community feels out of place,” even if the district could have secured it. The football game was played out Monday night.
Eden Prairie Mayor Ron Case then asked for a regional effort against what he called “gang activity among East African youth.” Fletcher’s briefing was cast as an answer to that request and to shootings in Eden Prairie and Edina that police have tied to gangs.
Fletcher put the number of youths involved at about 300. On KMSP, he said that is a thin slice of a Somali population he put above 100,000. However, he said only a run of arrests would convince the groups that shootings would draw a response.
“We need to arrest 50 of these 300 kids,” he said.
Edina held a public meeting the night before Fletcher spoke. Mayor Jim Hovland opened it by calling the metro problem a “Somali youth gang-type problem,” and told residents not to read that as a judgment on Somali families, according to the conservative Minnesota news site Alpha News.
Witt was in that room, along with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension superintendent and the police chiefs of Edina and Eden Prairie.
Speakers got about three minutes. A school bus driver blamed Minneapolis “spillover” and said crime was “brought on by the sanctuary policies” of Gov. Tim Walz, according to Alpha News.
WATCH: Edina residents speak out amid recent Somali gang violence
“I don’t go shopping at the Lunds to get shot at. I don’t go to workout to get shot at. My two daughters that workout there have a rule now that when it comes to gym time, I’m with them,” said one resident who listed off some of the violent incidents in the city in recent years.
— Alpha News (@AlphaNews) October 6, 2026
After that meeting, Eden Prairie police confirmed gunfire at a Speedway convenience near the high school. No one was hurt, and four people were held. Sources told Alpha News that Somalis were involved.
A predawn shooting Tuesday in Bloomington, also in Hennepin County, was tied to Somali gangs by sources who spoke to the same outlet. Alpha News also reported that Edina’s police chief later said a shots-fired call on a church-and-school campus involved Somalis.
Fletcher has used the figure of about 300 since summer. The Star Tribune reported that he has come under fire from the leader of a local Islamic center who wants him to see “crime as crime,” rather than a matter of ethnicity.
Case wants state and local police, prosecutors, schools, social services, youth groups, and Somali leaders to join forces to crack down on crime. Fletcher said he wants Hennepin’s sheriff and prosecutor to crack down with some arrests and prosecutions.
Witt’s reply was not encouraging.
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