Latest news with #SahanJournal
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Jury finds Derrick Thompson guilty on all charges in crash that killed 5 women
Jury finds Derrick Thompson guilty on all charges in crash that killed 5 women originally appeared on Bring Me The News. Derrick Thompson has been found guilty on all 15 charges for causing the death of five women in a horrific car crash in Minneapolis Thompson was traveling at speeds of up to 100 mph in an SUV rented from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on the evening of June 16, 2023, when he exited I-35W at Lake Street and ran a red light. He smashed into a vehicle carrying Sahra Gesaade, 20, Salma Abdikadir, 20, Sagal Hersi, 19, Siham Odhowa, 19, and Sabiriin Mohamoud Ali, 17, killing all of them. In court on Friday, a jury returned a verdict of guilty on all 15 counts – five counts of 3rd-degree murder and ten counts of criminal vehicular homicide. Thompson had claimed he wasn't behind the wheel at the time of the crash, with his defense team arguing investigators had failed to determine it was his brother, Damarco, who was at fault. Thompson, the son of former Minnesota Representative John Thompson, was allegedly was weaving in and out of traffic on I-35W shortly before exiting and running the red light at the end of the ramp. According to the Sahan Journal, the women, some of whom were related, had been together to get henna tattoos applied at Karmel Mall ahead of a friend's wedding. Their families are expected to speak following the conclusion of Friday's hearing. This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Jun 6, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
From south Minneapolis to the DOJ, Trump's vision of a post-civil rights America is becoming real
A mural covers the side of Gorditas el Gordo along East Lake Street in Minneapolis Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer) South Minneapolis along East Lake Street is a thriving immigrant neighborhood with block after block of family-run restaurants, churches and more businesses than you can shake a stick at, ordinarily serving a bustling foot traffic. As Sahan Journal reported not long after inauguration day, employees there are now scared to come to work. Customers are afraid to walk in the door. ICE raids and the threat of them frighten an entire populace witless, wreaking economic havoc. Undocumented immigrants already had to worry about being exploited by unscrupulous employers. In President Trump's America, those who need protection are instead being targeted; the outrageous, mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador is just one example we know about. The U.S. Department of Justice, which not long ago prided itself on its independence, has now become a key lever in Trump's effort to reverse the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. The first step was freezing the work of the Civil Rights Division, as the Washington Post first reported, 'halting much of its investigative activity dating from the Biden administration and not pursuing new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo sent to the temporary head of the division.' That means stopping cases enforcing important civil rights statutes, like the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Here in Minnesota the changes are affecting federal oversight of the Minneapolis Police Department and its long history of unconstitutional policing, including off-the-charts levels of racial profiling as revealed in the 2023 DOJ report. What was catalogued in that report, former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, 'made what happened to George Floyd possible.' After Floyd's murder and days of ensuing carnage, it took nearly five years to put the federal police reform agreement in place. But Trump's DOJ seems uncommitted to getting final approval. DOJ attorneys recently won a second 30-day stay on the pending consent decree case between Minneapolis and the federal government. Trump's right-wing pals are even pressuring him to pardon Derek Chauvin for his federal crimes. Thankfully, Trump can't pardon the state murder charge. But still, expect all hell to break loose on Minneapolis streets should he issue the pardon for the federal civil rights charge. Even if Trump holds off on the pardon, the prospects of a federal consent decree to oversee MPD aren't great. The head of the once-proud DOJ Civil Rights Division is Harmeet Dhillon. As NBC News reported, Dhillon has 'alleged fraud in the 2020 election, accused Google of discriminating against white men and spoken out against state laws to protect doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors.' Luckily, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights already put its own agreement with the city of Minneapolis in place, but federal oversight would be good belt-and-suspenders insurance. Trump, who was once accused by the federal government of refusing to rent to Black tenants, issued an executive order 'ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity,' which is double-talk, the effect of which is de facto legalized discrimination. 'Federal civil-rights laws protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, [protections supporting] equality of opportunity for all Americans. As President, I have a solemn duty to ensure that these laws are enforced for the benefit of all Americans,' he wrote. He is, to be crass about it, taking a leak on our heads and calling it rain. This gravely impacts women, racial and ethnic and religious minorities, lesbians and gays, not to mention the now frequently targeted transgender community. Everyone who isn't a white heterosexual male and counts on established civil rights legislation is straight out of luck. The DOJ's Civil Rights Division was created to protect citizens from the actions of bigots after the Civil War, enforcing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. They expanded that brief to protect other vulnerable folks. Now, contrary to Trump-speak, the DOJ is about the business of doing exactly the opposite. A key area is the workplace, where women, Black and immigrant workers have made strides thanks to enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and, yes, diversity efforts by both the federal government and corporations. With Trump turning the clock back, Meta, Ford, McDonald's, Walmart and Target all got in line. It took public outrage to restore recognition of the likes of the late Colin Powell, Jackie Robinson and other prominent Black veterans after Trump's order to scrub government websites of 'DEI,' i.e., Black achievement. Sadly, a prevailing reality is that some people of color like Justice Clarence Thomas — a disgrace to Thurgood Marshall's legacy — will pull the ladder up after them. Where the clarion call once was 'We shall overcome,' their credo is 'I have overcome.' Erec Smith of the Koch-funded Cato Institute endorsed Trump's sweeping edict, saying 'the Trump administration isn't getting rid of the concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion as they are typically understood. He's getting rid of the critical social justice version, which is inherently divisive.' A Trump executive order asserts, 'The purpose of this order is to ensure that it does so by ending illegal preferences and discrimination.' If you buy that, the proverbial bridge in Brooklyn is still available. Welcome to a post-civil rights America.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Blue state sheriffs combine forces to fight back against sanctuary laws
A group of five Minnesota sheriff's offices inked cooperation agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE), taking a strikingly different approach to immigration enforcement in a state known for its widespread sanctuary policies. Minnesota's Cass, Crow Wing, Freeborn, Itasca and Jackson counties sheriffs' offices have all entered 287g agreements with ICE since President Donald Trump took office, allowing the federal immigration agency to delegate some authority to the offices to perform immigration enforcement functions, according to a report by the Sahan Journal. The agreements allow for increased cooperation between the local law enforcement agencies and ICE, including programs that focus on identifying and processing illegal immigrants that are already in custody and are eligible for deportation. Another program allows for a "task force model," which brings the local agencies in to serve as a "force multiplier" for ICE, the report said. Jd Vance Torches Media, Dems' 'Disgraceful Set Of Priorities' On Deportation Of Accused Ms-13 Gang Member Some local law enforcement officers will also have the opportunity to participate in 40-hour ICE training sessions under the agreements, the report notes, while agencies participating in the program are required to keep in regular contact with their nearest ICE field office when carrying out any immigration enforcement. The agreements come in a state that has seen widespread use of so-called "sanctuary" policies that limit or prohibit a local jurisdiction's ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, with the latest Center for Immigration Studies data showing 12 Minnesota counties that have passed rules limiting cooperation with ICE. Read On The Fox News App The five sheriff's offices inking agreements with ICE over the last few months brings the total number of offices participating in 287g in the state to seven, the Sahan Journal report notes, with the five new counties joining Sherburne and Kandiyohi counties, which have long had cooperation agreements with ICE. Iowa Ag Launches Investigation After Sheriff Refuses To Work With Ice Judge Orders Trump Administration To Return Man Maryland Mistakenly Deported To El Salvador Prison The agreements have already led to a growth in immigrant detentions, with a Freeborn County jail deputy telling the Sahan Journal that there has "definitely" been an "uptick" in immigration inmates since the county entered the agreement. However, the program is not without critics, with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office cautioning local agencies to consider potential drawbacks. "While 287g agreements are sometimes touted as a tool for getting violent offenders off the street, studies have shown that large numbers of people detained through 287g-related enforcement have committed only misdemeanors or traffic violations," a spokesperson for Ellison's office told the Sahan Journal. Fox News Digital has reached out to Walz's office for article source: Blue state sheriffs combine forces to fight back against sanctuary laws
Fox News
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Blue state sheriffs combine forces to fight back against sanctuary laws
A group of five Minnesota sheriff's offices inked cooperation agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE), bringing an opposite approach to immigration enforcement in a state with widespread sanctuary policies. Minnesota's Cass, Crow Wing, Freeborn, Itasca and Jackson counties sheriffs' offices have all entered 287g agreements with ICE since President Donald Trump took office, allowing the federal immigration agency to delegate some authority to the offices to perform immigration enforcement functions, according to a report by the Sahan Journal. The agreements allow for increased cooperation between the local law enforcement agencies and ICE, including programs that focus on identifying and processing illegal immigrants that are already in custody and are eligible for deportation. Another program allows for a "task force model," which brings the local agencies in to serve as a "force multiplier" for ICE, the report said. Some local law enforcement officers will also have the opportunity to participate in 40-hour ICE training sessions under the agreements, the report notes, while agencies participating in the program are required to keep in regular contact with their nearest ICE field office when carrying out any immigration enforcement. The agreements come in a state that has seen widespread use of so-called "sanctuary" policies that limit or prohibit a local jurisdiction's ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, with the latest Center for Immigration Studies data showing 12 Minnesota counties that have passed rules limiting cooperation with ICE. The five sheriff's offices inking agreements with ICE over the last few months brings the total number of offices participating in 287g in the state to seven, the Sahan Journal report notes, with the five new counties joining Sherburne and Kandiyohi counties, which have long had cooperation agreements with ICE. The agreements have already led to a growth in immigrant detentions, with a Freeborn County jail deputy telling the Sahan Journal that there has "definitely" been an "uptick" in immigration inmates since the county entered the agreement. However, the program is not without critics, with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison's office cautioning local agencies to consider potential drawbacks. "While 287g agreements are sometimes touted as a tool for getting violent offenders off the street, studies have shown that large numbers of people detained through 287g-related enforcement have committed only misdemeanors or traffic violations," a spokesperson for Ellison's office told the Sahan Journal. Fox News Digital has reached out to Walz's office for comment.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Still no evidence Ilhan Omar's father committed war crimes while serving in Somali military
For several years, online rumors have alleged that U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar's father, Nur Omar Mohamed, committed war crimes as a military officer in Somalia before immigrating to the U.S. as a refugee. There is little detailed information available about Nur's life in Somalia. He died in 2020 of COVID-19. Although Omar described her father in her 2020 memoir as an "educator," Nur's obituary said he was a colonel in the Somali National Army and commanded a regiment during the 1977-78 Somali-Ethiopian War. Under the authoritarian regime of President Mohamed Siad Barre, the Somali National Army and various paramilitary groups committed war crimes and acts of genocide against the Issaq clan in northwestern Somalia (modern day Somaliland) in the 1980s. Though no evidence rules out the possibility that Nur, as a Somali army officer, participated in war crimes or genocide, there is also no evidence that he did. Snopes reached out to Omar's office for comment but did not receive a reply. Not long after U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, became the first Somali American and first hijab-wearing Muslim woman elected to Congress, rumors about her family's background began appearing online. Among them was a rumor that her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, committed war crimes while a colonel in the Somali National Army and was in the United States "illegally." Snopes previously reported on this claim in 2019, noting that Nur entered the U.S. legally, having secured asylum status, and that there was no evidence he "was responsible for, or even credibly accused of, any wrongdoing in Somalia." No new facts have come to light to change that conclusion. Some sources — oftentimes, but not always, ones making the unfounded claim that Omar married her brother for immigration purposes — allege that Omar's father's full name was Nur Said Mohamed Elmi, and there is some evidence to support this. Snopes conducted its research using both names, but for the purposes of this article will refer to Omar's father as Nur Omar Mohamed. When Nur died of COVID-19 in June 2020, the Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering immigrants and communities of color in Minneapolis, published an obituary. That article described him as an "esteemed senior officer in the Somali National Army," and noted that Nur led a regiment during the 1977-78 Somali-Ethiopian War, and that his military career "ended in 1991" after rebel groups ousted the leader of Somalia, President Mohamed Siad Barre. The Somali-Ethiopian War is also sometimes called the Ogaden War, named after a region of eastern Ethiopia whose population is ethnically Somali. The events in that war set the stage for the war crimes Nur is accused of committing. In 1974, popular uprisings in Ethiopia led to a military coup against Emperor Haile Selassie, creating a power vacuum and a civil war that would last decades. A junta called the Derg slowly established control over the country and transformed its government into a Soviet-backed socialist regime by the late 1970s. According to a 1990 Human Rights Watch report, Siad Barre, who had led Somalia since 1969 and was also backed by the Soviet Union, saw an opportunity. A militant group in eastern Ethiopia known as the Western Somali Liberation Front had been fighting to integrate the region into Somalia. So, in 1977, the Somali military invaded. Faced with two of its allies fighting, the Soviets chose to maintain the status quo by moving their support from Somalia to Ethiopia. In response, Siad Barre disavowed the Soviet Union and slowly began growing Somalia's relationship with the United States. Following the Soviet Union's decision to support Ethiopia, the Somali military quickly began to lose ground and the war ended without any territory exchanging hands. The war's failure also led to significant dissent in Somalia — in the years following, Siad Barre faced several coup attempts from anti-government rebel organizations. Heritage and family — in particular, the country's well-documented clan system — are important in Somali culture. It has also been the source of significant fighting over the years. According to Ilhan Omar's memoir, "This Is What America Looks Like," her father was "an educator" who came from the "northern-based Majerteen clan," early allies in Siad Barre's regime and "one of the most powerful [clans] in the country." Not long after the Somali-Ethiopian War, a group of Majerteen clan leaders attempted to oust Siad Barre. When the coup failed, Siad Barre began persecuting and killing Majerteen clan members, who went on to form the Somali Salvation Front (later the Somali Salvation Democratic Front), the first armed movement against his regime. It's unknown whether Nur faced persecution after the Majeerteen coup attempt. While Ilhan Omar did write that the Majerteen were "originally subjected to Siad Barre's brutal crackdown," she also said she lived in a "guarded compound" in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The Saban Journal obituary described her upbringing as "middle class." With that said, the compound was not owned by her father or her father's family — it was owned by her mother's family. Omar wrote that her father, against societal norms, moved in with her mother's family when he fell in love. As such, the compound was almost certainly owned by Ilhan Omar's maternal grandfather, who "was Benadiri, a Somali ethnic minority who trace their lineage to Persians, Indians, and Bantu peoples from West Africa and Arab Yemenis," according to the memoir. In other words, his heritage existed outside the clan structure. Her grandfather worked in the Siad Barre regime and ran "the country's network of lighthouses." Omar also wrote that during the power vacuum following the collapse of Siad Barre's regime, family members instructed her to hide her lineage lest she be killed by militias from a rival clan. Nur's activities between the end of the Somali-Ethiopian war in 1978 and the fall of the Siad Barre government in 1991, which is when Omar's family fled the country, are unknown, although her memoir says the family was living in the southern city of Mogadishu. During this time period, the Somali military massacred civilians and committed genocide in the north of the country. After the Somali-Ethiopian War, refugees from eastern Ethiopia fled to northwestern Somalia (now the autonomous region of Somaliland), the homeland of the Issaq clan. According to the 1990 report from Human Rights Watch, Siad Barre's regime worked to disenfranchise the Issaq clan in every way possible throughout the 1980s. Siad Barre, a member of the Darod clan, began passing laws to favor the refugees, who were largely Darod themselves. Issaq business owners were told to hire Darod refugees and pay them massive salaries or be arrested. Issaq officials were removed from the government and replaced by refugees. Siad Barre conscripted thousands of refugees into militias like the Western Somali Liberation Front and trained them alongside the Somali military. In response, members of the Issaq clan founded a different rebel group called the Somali National Movement in 1981. Siad Barre used the establishment of the SNM as justification for further escalation — within a few years, the regime treated every Issaq person as if they were helping the group and punished them accordingly. The SNM reacted to Siad Barre's escalations by fighting back. By 1987, the Issaq had been so fully dehumanized by the regime that Siad Barre's son-in-law, Gen. Mohamed Said Hirsi Morgan, sent a letter to Siad Barre describing plans for the "final solution" to the "Issaq problem." Arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings of Issaq people were common, and Issaq livestock and water reservoirs were being systematically destroyed by the Somali military and WSLF forces. In 1988, the SNM successfully captured Hargeisa and Burao, the two largest cities in Somaliland. In response, Siad Barre ordered the military to bomb the cities. According to 2018 reporting from The Nation, Hargeisa, Somalia's second-largest city, was bombed so heavily it became known as the "Dresden of Africa." The bombings, combined with ground troops, killed an estimated 40,000 people in Hargeisa. A 1989 U.S. State Department report estimated that between 300,000 and 500,000 Somalis fled to Ethiopia from northern Somalia in the following months. A U.S. General Accounting Office report to Congress from the same year described Hargeisa as a "ghost town." In 1991, the Siad Barre regime finally collapsed. As the ongoing civil war intensified, Omar's family fled to Kenya as refugees, and the northwestern region of Somalia declared independence as the breakaway state of Somaliland. In the years following, the Center for Justice and Accountability, a legal nonprofit group that represents victims of torture and human rights abuses, successfully filed three separate lawsuits against high-ranking individuals in the Siad Barre regime living in the United States based on torture and human rights violations committed during the Issaq genocide. There are no definitive sources detailing Nur Omar Mohamed's activities between 1978 and 1991. As such, there's no evidence proving or disproving that he participated in war crimes or genocidal acts. The Sahan Journal's obituary concluded by mentioning that in his later years, Nur was "involved in efforts to rebuild and strengthen the security forces of Puntland, an autonomous state in northeastern Somalia." Puntland was his birthplace and the home of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front, the anti-Siad Barre rebel group that later went on to establish the autonomous state. Snopes' archives contributed to this report "ABOUT SAHAN JOURNAL." Sahan Journal, Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Admin. "Commentary: Was Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar's Father Part of Brutal Marxist Military Dictatorship in Somalia?" Tennessee Star, 2 Dec. 2021, Africa, United States Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on. Reported Massacres and Indiscriminate Killings in Somalia: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, Second Session, July 14, 1988. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989. ann_marlowe. We Should Be Paying More Attention to Somalia. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Battiata, Mary. "SOMALIA FIGHTS CHARGES OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES." Washington Post, 24 Jan. 1989, Columnist, The Spectator Usa's Cockburn. "How Ilhan Omar Tried to Shut down Rumors She Married Her BROTHER." Mail Online, 18 July 2019, Cyllah, Almami, and John Prendergast. "GENOCIDE IN THE HORN OF AFRICA." Washington Post, 30 June 1990, Einashe, Ismail, and Matt Kennard. In the Valley of Death: Somaliland's Forgotten Genocide. 22 Oct. 2018. Gersony, Robert. WHY SOMALIS FLEE. Bureau for Refugee Programs, Aug. 1989, Hirsi, Ibrahim. "'He Was Loved by Everyone': Somali Community Remembers Nur Omar Mohamed, Who Died of COVID-19." Sahan Journal, 20 June 2020, HSI Arrests Former High-Ranking Somali Lieutenant Colonel Accused of Human Rights Violations | ICE. 18 Nov. 2022, Ilhan Omar Must Resign: New Evidence from Nearly Three Dozen Somalis Reveals a Probable Spree of Felonies | Blaze Media. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Issa-Salwe, Abdisalam M. The Collapse of The Somali State: The Impact of the Colonial Legacy. Mburu, Chris. Past Human Rights Abuses in Somalia: Report of a Preliminary Study Conducted for the United Nations (OHCHR/UNDP-Somalia). 2002. Mission & History – CJA. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Ogaden | Ethiopia, Map, History, & Facts | Britannica. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Omar, Ilhan. THIS IS WHAT AMERICA LOOKS LIKE. HURST & COMPANY, LONDON, 2020. Palma, Bethania. "Did U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar Marry Her Brother?" Snopes, 15 Feb. 2019, ---. "Is Rep. Omar's Father a 'Somalian War Criminal' Living 'Illegally' in U.S.?" Snopes, 25 July 2019, "Puntland Profile." BBC News, 11 July 2011. Rep. Omar's Statement on the Passing of Her Father | Representative Ilhan Omar. 15 June 2020, Rosen, Armin. "Ilhan's Country." Tablet, 20 July 2022, SOMALIA. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Somalia - Revolt, British, Somaliland | Britannica. 24 Mar. 2025, Somalia / Somaliland – CJA. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. "Somalia (11/07)." U.S. Department of State, // Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Somalia: A Government At War With Its Own People. Africa Watch, Jan. 1990, "Somalia: A Human Rights Disaster." Amnesty International, 4 Aug. 1992, Somalia (Isaaq Genocide). Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. SOMALIA Observations Regarding the Northern Conflict and Resulting Conditions. GAO/NSIAD-89-159, General Accounting Office, May 1989, Somaliland: The Horn of Africa's Breakaway State | Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025. Virginia Uber Driver Was Somali War Criminal. 21 May 2019. Wires, Pirate. How Snopes Buried the Truth About Ilhan Omar's Father. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.
