Over 32,000 ex-Somalis have set­tled into the state of Min­nesota. While many flour­ish with their new lives in Amer­ica, some young Somali have formed street gangs. The vio­lence amongst the street gangs is on the rise, and has drawn some atten­tion in the national press with the gang killing of Ahmed­nur Ali who was a stu­dent and youth volunteer.

From this Asso­ci­ated Press story that we found at CBS News, a Somali com­mu­nity orga­nizer reacts to the crime.

“It was all gang activ­ity, totally, 100 per­cent,” said Shukri Adan, a for­mer Somali com­mu­nity orga­nizer who esti­mated in a 2007 report for the city that between 400 and 500 young Soma­lis were active in gangs. “The police don’t want to say that but every­body else knows that.”

Despite anger and despair over the killings in Minnesota’s Somali com­mu­nity — the nation’s largest — police and pros­e­cu­tors have strug­gled to catch and try the killers. Few wit­nesses have stepped for­ward because of a fear of reprisal and deep-rooted dis­trust of author­ity. More than half of Minnesota’s Soma­lis are liv­ing in poverty, accord­ing to state sta­tis­tics, and many com­plain that author­i­ties are biased against Soma­lis because of their Islamic faith.

Last month, pros­e­cu­tors dropped the mur­der charge against the teenage boy in Ali’s case after one wit­ness backed out and another appar­ently fled the state.

Gangs like the Somali Hot Boyz, the Somali Mafia and Mad­hibaan with Atti­tude have grown more active in recent years, said Jea­nine Bru­denell, the Min­neapo­lis Police Department’s Somali liai­son officer.

The recent spate of killings started in Decem­ber 2007, when two Somali men, ages 27 and 25, were found shot to death at a south Min­neapo­lis home. No arrests have been made in that case.

They cul­mi­nated last Sep­tem­ber, when a man was fatally shot out­side of the Vil­lage Mar­ket Mall, a clus­ter of Somali-owned busi­nesses and a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion for local Soma­lis. Inves­ti­ga­tors believe the shooter was retal­i­at­ing for the death of his cousin, one of the other slain Soma­lis. The mall shoot­ing was the only of the seven slay­ings for which any­one was con­victed — 23-year-old Has­san Mohamed Abdil­lahi.
…

A gang expert in Cal­i­for­nia said eco­nomic and social fac­tors are more likely to blame for the spike in gang activ­ity than any spillover of vio­lence from war-ravaged Somalia.

“When there’s unem­ploy­ment and poverty and lack of exter­nal sup­port, there’s gangs,” said Jorja Leap, a social wel­fare pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Los Ange­les and for­mer gang adviser to the Los Ange­les County Sheriff’s Department.

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