2 charged with machine gun possession following Twin Cities high school graduation ceremony shootings
Two men with alleged ties to graduation ceremony shootings in the Twin Cities area have been federally charged with possessing machine guns.
Hamza Said, 20, was arrested on the evening of May 30 after a shooting at the Wayzata High School graduation at the Mariucci Arena on the University of Minnesota campus. According to court documents Said is seen on surveillance video firing multiple rounds. Two people were injured in the shooting outside the arena.
Officers recovered a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol with a machine gun conversion device, commonly called a "switch" near the scene, documents say.
Said already faces charges in Hennepin County connected to the shooting. He faces one count of first-degree assault, one count of second-degree assault and one count of owning a machine gun. All are felony-level offenses.
The second man, 18-year-old Amiir Ali, is also federally charged with possessing a firearm. Court documents say that on June 3, Minneapolis police officers pulled a car over on 27th Street East and 18th Avenue South when they saw it drive "aggressively" through an intersection.
Ali was sitting in the passenger seat, and officers found a Glock 10 mm semiautomatic firearm under the seat. It was loaded with a 33-round extended magazine and machine gun conversion device, documents say.
According to the complaint, the officer who pulled the car over knew Ali from prior investigations, and believed he was associated with recent gang-related shootings. Ali and the two other people in the car said they were heading to the Edina High School graduation ceremony at the University of Minnesota.
Ali was arrested and taken to jail, but was released with no charges after 36 hours.
The U.S. Department of Justice says Ali was arrested when police responded to the Saturday shooting at Burnsville High School's graduation ceremony.
Ali is one of two people charged in Dakota County in connection to the Burnsville shooting; he faces two drive-by shooting charges and a second-degree assault charge. The criminal complaint says police found a handgun with an extended magazine and a bullet casing on the floor of the car Ali was in.
"High school graduation ceremonies are a rite of passage. A time for friends and family to come together to celebrate one of life's major milestones. To bring machineguns and violence to such a ceremony is immoral and shameful," said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson.
Both Said and Ali are in custody.
Police say a common thread ties together the graduation shootings and a deadly shooting at a north metro mall: young people in the Somali community.
An emergency closed-door meeting was held Wednesday evening in response to the wave of violence that has left the Somali community shaken and ready for solutions.
The main question on everyone's mind: How do we save the youth from this violence? That's what brought parents, faith leaders and community members to Aim Academy, where the meeting was held to focus on a lifesaving solution to get ahead of the crisis that has gripped the community.
"We don't want these things to continue. It has to stop," said Mohamed Ibrahim, a concerned father and community leader. "We will help you come to the mosque come to the community center you deserve better than this."
There are several more community conversations planned.
