MINNEAPOLIS — A 16-year-old from Brooklyn Park is charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two other teens on Halloween night.
Squads were dispatched to the 7200 block of Zane Avenue North around 5 p.m. that evening, and arriving officers found two 16-year-olds on the ground with gunshot wounds. One teen, later identified as Diriye Abdi Muhumed of Brooklyn Park, died at the scene. The second victim, Muhumed's cousin, Chardid Hachi Farah, was taken to the hospital by ambulance and later died of his injuries.
A 911 caller and witness told police that three people ran from the scene after shots were fired. The petition says subsequent investigation and recovered evidence identified the 16-year-old defendant as one of two gunmen who shot the victims.
Prosecutors say Muhumed's phone was found on the murder scene and on it was a series of texts between him and the alleged gunman. The conversation is characterized by investigators as an argument over a missing firearm containing threats from both parties, with the final text being sent just hours before the fatal shooting.
The petition also details how a spent shell casing recovered at the scene was analyzed and found to be shot from the same gun used in another shooting on July 25. Both occurred at or near the 7000 block of Zane Court, where the defendant lives with his mother. Shoe prints were found running toward the address following the Halloween shooting, and officers recovered evidence that suspects fleeing the murder scene tried to enter a window on the property.
When questioned by detectives with his parent present, the 16-year-old reportedly admitted to his role in the fatal shootings, telling police that Muhumed left a gun at his house and that they had arranged a meeting to discuss the missing gun. The defendant allegedly said Muhumed came to the meet-up with three people, things did not go as planned and he eventually pulled his own gun and shot one of the victims.
At that point, the petition says, the defendant ran from the scene.
Police say parts of the shooting were captured on surveillance video, which shows one of the victims falling to the ground after being shot while a second suspect can then be seen rifling through the victim's pockets before leaving the scene.
Brooklyn Park Mayor Hollies Winston said he has met with the families of the two victims.
"Unfortunately this is the third time I've had this type of conversation and it's never easy," Winston said.
Brooklyn Park is not alone however, in seeing youth with guns.
"It's getting to a point where kids are feeling uncomfortable they feel they need to have that piece," Winston said. "To feel comfortable in the streets, and that's something that we're working hard to get upstream for. But that's the reality is that there's a proliferation of [guns] it's easy and inexpensive for the youth to get access to these guns."
Winston said while the city is working to get public safety grants and meet youth where they're at, ultimately, they are going to hold those who cause violence accountable.
"We definitely don't have a high tolerance for allowing our youth that we love to go in the wrong direction," Winston said. "So for us, it is newsworthy, it's an emergency we are addressing it. It is important to us because no one wants to have those meetings with the family; and even more so no one wants to be that family."
The Hennepin County Attorney's Office has not said whether they will attempt to prosecute the 16-year-old as an adult.
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