MINNEAPOLIS — Over the last several weeks, multiple Minneapolis neighborhoods have been targeted by groups of young people carjacking vehicles and carrying out a series of armed robberies on unsuspecting victims, many of them women.
In the wake of those crime sprees, Minneapolis police announced a handful of arrests, vowing that those taken into custody would face significant charges.
As It turns out, not all of those arrested will be charged, and those who do face prosecution face less serious charges in many cases.
On Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty sent out a press release and a videotaped statement announcing prosecutorial decisions made in a dozen criminal cases brought to them by Minneapolis police involving two separate robbery sprees, one that took place over five days in early February, and the other on Feb. 25.
In the first spree of approximately 30 robberies, Moriarty said police forwarded five cases for potential charging. She said investigators felt strongly that those robberies had been carried out by the same group of juveniles.
After analysis, Moriarty says the County Attorney's Office decided they were only able to charge in four of the five cases, and none of the defendants will face armed robbery charges, only lesser offenses like fleeing a police officer, auto theft and possession of a firearm.
"It's important to understand, simply because a youth may be found in a stolen car, doesn’t mean we can prove that they stole the car," Moriarty said in her videotaped statement. "It also doesn’t mean they were in the car at the time it was used to commit a robbery."
"At the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, we have to rely on the investigation by the Minneapolis Police Department to tie together all of the evidence that would allow us to prove a particular young person was in the car at the time and actively participated in the robbery," she concluded.
Moriarty said she assigned two supervisors to carefully read and dissect 30 police reports to identify patterns in the multiple incidents and assemble information her office could share with MPD. The county attorney explained that work was important, as investigators soon delivered seven more cases in connection with the Feb. 25 spree. Moriarty said her prosecution team was able to charge five defendants, all of them with robbery. She added that none of the five charged were connected to the robbery spree in early February.
The Hennepin County Attorney's office has faced intense criticism over recent charging and prosecutorial decisions in cases involving juveniles. While Moriarty did not directly address the performance of the Minneapolis Police Department in the explosion of violent juvenile crime, her YouTube clip delivered a message that was hard to miss: Her office will file charges if investigators deliver evidence that allows them to do so.
"If we are brought cases with proof where youth are committing violent crimes, we will charge them and hold them accountable," Moriarty concluded.
Bishop Richard Howell Jr. of Shiloh Temple International Ministries in North Minneapolis said he supports accountability for the teens charged with crimes. However, he said that's only one part of the solution.
"They have nothing else to do. They're suffering financially and they're looking for something that they can own. It's unfortunate that our city is having a barrage of these thefts," Howell said. "They're living in trauma. Whatever led them to these behaviors, obviously, they're crying out for help."
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