ST PAUL, Minn. — A jury has found Derrick Thompson guilty of drug and firearm charges stemming from a high-speed crash that claimed the lives of five young women in Minneapolis.
Thompson faced three charges - possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Closing arguments in the case were delivered Thursday at 2 p.m., and then jurors deliberated for a short time Thursday and a few hours Friday before reaching their verdict.
Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office say Thompson will be sentenced at a later date.
The trial lasted less than a week. On Tuesday, jurors watched a violent and graphic video from the night of June 19, 2023, that showed the 29-year-old Thompson's rented SUV running a red light at high speed and crashing into a vehicle waiting at a stoplight at the intersection of Second Avenue South and East Lake Street. All five passengers inside the car that was struck were killed.
But both prosecutors and Thompson's defense team told jurors it was not the most important piece of evidence they'd see in the case, urging them not to attempt to analyze the crash itself.
"This is a case about an armed drug dealer," Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Calhoun-Lopez told the panel. "We are here today because (the) defendant crashed that car carrying 2,000 fentanyl pills, cocaine, fentanyl powder and a loaded gun."
Calhoun-Lopez explained Derrick Thompson's subsequent fleeing and lying to police following the deadly crash proves the gun and drugs were his. In addition, DNA testing linked Thompson to the items.
But the defense offered the jury an alternative theory that was absent from the public realm until recently when it was revealed that Thompson had a passenger in the rental car - his brother Damarco Thompson.
Thompson's attorney Matthew Deates told jurors that Damarco is the flashier of the Thompson brothers and that he likes colorful, flashy things like the blue cap police found on the passenger side of the Escalade. Deates added that the colorful wrap on the handgun matches those tastes and that the spot where police found the bag containing the gun and drugs also points to the defendant's brother. The bag was located under Damarco's blue hat.
"That is the definition of confirmation bias. It’s tunnel vision. It does not make it right. This caused the government to charge the wrong person. But you - as the jury - gets to weigh the evidence and decide," Deates said in his opening statement.
Sabirin Ali, 17, of Bloomington, Sahra Gesaade, 20, of Brooklyn Center, Salma Abdikadir, 20, of Saint Louis Park, Sagal Hersi, 19, of Minneapolis, and 19-year-old Siham Adam, Minneapolis, were all killed as they headed home after running errands. Prosecutors said Thompson spotted a state trooper, exited I-94 going more than 100 miles per hour and then sped through a red light at the intersection where the vehicle carrying the five victims was sitting.
Witnesses told responding officers that Thompson had fled the scene. They found him nearby, wearing clothing that matched witness descriptions sitting on the curb outside of a nearby restaurant.
After obtaining a warrant to search Thompson's rented SUV, investigators found a black leather bag on the front passenger side floor containing a loaded Glock pistol with an extended magazine, three baggies containing more than 2,000 blue “M-Box 30” fentanyl pills, a baggie containing 14 grams of fentanyl powder, a baggie containing 35 grams of cocaine, and a digital scale.
Prosecutors say testing of the seized gun and drugs found Thompson's DNA on all of them, and that a search of Thompson’s phone found dozens of texts indicating fentanyl deals.
Derrick Thompson is the son of former Minnesota State Representative John Thompson. He had already been convicted twice in Minnesota for fleeing police, and in 2018 Thompson was convicted of fleeing police and hitting a pedestrian in California, resulting in the victim being put in a coma. He received an eight-year prison sentence and it is unclear how long he served before being released.
Thompson's legal woes are far from over - he faces five counts of third-degree murder and five counts of criminal vehicular homicide at the state level.