Mean streets
Pervasive criminality in the metro.
Mustafa Ahmed Mohamed, the killer of hero Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell, should not have had a gun or been on the street in south Minneapolis on May 30.
Mohamed killed Mitchell on Blaisdell Avenue as well as Osman Said Jimale in a nearby apartment, and also 36-year-old Mohamed Bashir Aden. In the midst of the street shootout with Mitchell, two first responders and other civilians were wounded.
American Experiment reported on Mohamed’s four previous felony convictions, which included a federal gun charge — meaning he was legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.
The gun charge is a small piece of a dark harbinger of criminality in the Twin Cities.
The Star Tribune reports that Mohamed was also charged in a 2010 federal sex-trafficking case filed in Nashville, Tenn. that was later dismissed. He was one of 29 individuals charged in that case. The 2010 indictment references three Somali criminal gangs based in Minneapolis.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press originally reported on the Nashville case in the Nov. 8, 2010 news story, “29 charged in bust of sex slave ring tied to 3 Minneapolis gangs.” Mohamed was defendant No. 20 in that case. He is also mentioned on page 21, paragraph 60 of the indictment.
Of note, defendant No. 26 in the 2010 Nashville case shares the same name, Haji Osman Salad, and age as Defendant No. 31 in the Feeding Our Future case. It is not known whether the two men are the same individual. Regardless, the Nashville case was eventually dismissed.
By all accounts, Mohamed should have been behind bars arising from an unresolved 2022 state felony gun possession charge.
In August 2022, Mohamed was arrested after being spotted at the scene of an apparent robbery in downtown Minneapolis carrying a semi-automatic pistol. He was not charged with the robbery but was facing up to 15 years in prison on the gun charge. He was released a few days later after posting a $35,000 bond.
At a September 2022 court hearing, Hennepin County judge Julie Allyn ruled that Mohamed would no longer be subject to electronic home monitoring by a GPS ankle monitor, a move to which the prosecution did not object. Mohamed failed to appear at his next hearing, which was scheduled for November 2022. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and his bond was forfeited.
In a series of court filings covering more than a year, his bail bond company reported periodically on their efforts to locate Mohamed and keep their $35,000. Despite reports placing him in the Riverside Plaza area of Minneapolis, he was never apprehended. The bail bond company suggested that Mohamed’s immediate family was concealing knowledge of his whereabouts.
The case was reassigned to a different judge in November 2023. After having granted several extensions, the state ordered the bail bond company to make good on the $35,000 bond.
The warrant for his arrest was still active when Mohamed encountered Officer Mitchell in a fatal ambush on May 30.
As for another of Mohamed’s victims, 32-year-old Osman Said Jimale, little in Jimale’s background would have foreshadowed his ultimate fate. In his juvenile days he was found delinquent in a series of cases involving auto thefts.
Since turning 18, his law enforcement encounters have consisted mostly of parking and traffic violations. A few minor loitering and trespassing cases dot his record. His only adult felony charge (later dismissed) arose from a 2021 incident in which he allegedly smashed a big-screen TV in a drunken rage at the RAS Ethiopian Restaurant, Bar & Lounge on West 7th Street in St. Paul.
The third victim, Aden, succumbed to his wounds in the hospital June 7. In recent years, he was convicted of a series of misdemeanors relating to trespassing and property damage charges at Minnesota gambling casinos. At the time of Aden’s murder, an active warrant was out for his arrest for failure to appear in yet another 2022 trespassing case involving a casino in Anoka County.
More seriously, on April 1, Aden was arrested in Minneapolis on a 1st-degree felony charge involving fentanyl distribution and a handgun. At 2:30 a.m., police found Aden slumped over in a running car parked on a sidewalk. They found 1,600 fentanyl pills and $1,300 in cash, in addition to the firearm. According to police, Aden was the driver, with one unidentified passenger.
Aden was facing a maximum 40-year sentence in the case, but he managed to post a $100,000 bond. His next hearing was scheduled for the end of June. Unfortunately for Aden, he was out free and found himself on Blaisdell Avenue on the afternoon of May 30.
We can’t expect safe streets when they are handed over to repeat criminals. We can expect more unnecessary and tragic killings of heroes like Jamal Mitchell.