A new kind of gang, driven by social media feuds rather than drugs or money, is behind a string of shootings in the Twin Cities area, law enforcement leaders say. A longtime gang researcher says the violence is real, but reducing it comes down to something familiar: giving young people what gangs are offering.
In Bloomington, police say about 100 rounds were fired in a residential neighborhood early Tuesday, and one person suffered minor injuries. On Friday night, two teens were shot outside Eden Prairie High School’s homecoming football game against Minnetonka, and the stadium was cleared. Police believe the shooting was gang-related.
Law enforcement leaders have tied the violence to Somali American gangs, and they say these groups are not like the gangs of past decades. They told WCCO the shootings aren’t about drugs or money. Today, they’re more likely to be about social media beefs.
Leaders are now looking for solutions. Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt said Tuesday that her office is repurposing two task forces to focus primarily on gangs, and she called for more cooperation among law enforcement agencies.
That raises the question of whether young people feuding over social media is really a gang battle. Minnesota’s legal test for a gang is any organization of three or more people with a common name, sign or symbol, and for which serious crime is one of its main activities.
James Densley, a Metropolitan State University professor who has studied gang culture for decades, said today’s gangs may look different in how the groups are organized and what they do. But he believes this surge of violence is a repeat of what has happened before. One constant, he said: The violence clusters among a small number of people, which means those are the people to reach out to.
Densley cautioned against labeling the groups by ethnicity. The violence is real, he says, but the question is whether doing so “helps us stop it.” He said he prefers to think of the groups by what they do, not by where their parents come from.
Others have raised similar concerns. At a community meeting on gang violence in Edina on Monday night, resident Farhina Budul urged leaders to address the violence without stigmatizing an entire community.
Densley said gangs fill gaps in belonging, protection and status, and that hasn’t changed over the generations. “If we want fewer young people in gangs, we have to fill those gaps first,” he said. That means coaches, mentors, jobs and “someone who picks up the phone at two in the morning when there is a crisis.”
Densley hopes law enforcement works with the community, using trusted voices to get young people on the fringes of the violence out of it, and to lock up those pulling the triggers.
