Twin Cities police say a recent burst of shootings is tied to Somali-American gangs whose disputes are driven by social media, not drugs or territory, and whose members often come from stable, relatively affluent homes.
Early on October 7, 2026, Bloomington officers responded to the 10000 block of Harriet Avenue after roughly 100 rounds were fired in a residential area near an in-home daycare. Investigators recovered nearly 100 evidence markers; one person suffered minor injuries. Security footage showed men firing handguns in rapid succession, and police said some weapons appeared to have been fitted with illegal auto sears that convert semi-automatic pistols to fully automatic fire. Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges and Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher linked the gunfire to Somali gang activity and described it as retaliatory.
The incident was the third in a short sequence that police have associated with the same pattern. On Friday night, gunfire outside an Eden Prairie High School football game injured two Somali teenagers; officials said the shooting appeared gang-related and that those involved were not believed to be students. On Monday evening, shots were fired at a Speedway station on West 78th Street in Eden Prairie; four people were detained who police said were not the shooters, and investigators again pointed to Somali gang activity, though they had not established a direct link to the football-game shooting.
At a joint news conference, Hodges rejected the older stereotype of gangs organized around drug markets. “They’re coming from two-parent homes, living in apartment buildings with $3,500 a month rent, driving BMWs and Mercedes, and all these luxury cars,” he said. “These kids have come from good homes and they have money. They’re living in houses that cost more than my mortgage. So they’re out here simply shooting each other based on social media beef, period.” He added that there was “no money involved” and “no drugs involved.” Fletcher has previously estimated about a dozen named Somali gangs with roughly 300 members in a Somali Minnesotan population of about 100,000, and has described the groups as unusually mobile across the metro area, trading threats online before meeting to shoot.
Law-enforcement leaders from Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Edina, and Hennepin County called for closer coordination and a dedicated response. Community advocates have, in earlier coverage of Fletcher’s comments, warned that broad descriptions of “Somali gangs” risk stigmatizing a much larger population; police at the latest briefing emphasized that both suspects and victims in the Bloomington case were members of the Somali-American community and framed the problem as a small subset engaged in retaliatory violence.
SOURCES:
State law expands criteria for how social media posts can be used in court for criminal gang trials
Nearly 100 evidence markers found after Somali gang-related shooting in Bloomington – KSTP.com 5 Eyewitness News
Twin Cities law enforcement leaders call for unified gang task force amid spate of gun crimes – CBS Minnesota
Bloomington shooting: 100+ rounds fired in Somali gang-related incident | FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul
After another blitz of gunfire, chiefs call for action on Somali-American gangs – KSTP.com 5 Eyewitness News
After spike in gang-related shootings, Twin Cities chiefs and sheriffs announce coordinated plan to address violence
