Male accused of raping girls ages 4 and 9 to serve less than 180 days in jail – not required to register as sex offender



A 20-year-old Minnesota man accused of raping two girls, ages 4 and 9, when he was around 16 years old will serve less than 180 days in jail and up to 30 years of probation. He will not have to register as a sex offender, and the charges against him will be dismissed from his criminal record at the completion of his probation, the Post Bulletin reported.

Mohamed Bakari Shei faced three felony first-degree charges in two rape cases involving minor victims. Shei was initially charged in 2019 after he was accused of sexual assaults against a 4-year-old and 9-year-old girl when he was 15 and 16 years old.

The court documents revealed that one of the underage victims reported in April 2020 that she had first been raped by Shei on Mother's Day in 2018 at a residence. The girl informed the police that Shei had promised to give her money and buy her toys.

In June 2021, a second underage victim told authorities that Shei had raped her multiple times at the same residence.

In December 2022, Shei entered an Alford plea, which meant that he did not admit guilt of the sexual assault crimes, but he did admit the jury would likely convict him based on the evidence.

According to Shei's lawyer, James McGeeney, the court could not sentence Shei to serve jail time because it would violate the plea agreement.

On January 30, 2023, District Judge Jacob Allen disagreed with McGeeney and sentenced Shei to serve, with good behavior, 116 days in the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center and 30 years probation. The judge also ordered Shei to undergo a sex offender program and complete 200 hours of community service.

Shei's plea deal called for a stay of adjudication and two of the three charges to be dropped. After the completion of Shei's probation, all charges against him will be dismissed and removed from his criminal record.

One of the victims and several family members spoke during Monday's sentencing hearing. "There is no moving on or getting over it, I've tried," stated one of the victims.

"Some day you will have to answer for this egregious act against a child," said a family member of one of the girls.

"I hope you heard what was said in this court today," Allen told Shei. "The conduct they described and the way it affected them should be something that haunts you."

\u201cMohamed Bakari Shei, 20, of Rochester was convicted of raping two girls ages approximately 4 and 8 years old when the abuse began. Charges say the sexual assaults occurred multiple times.\n\nHe was sentenced Monday to 180 days in local jail.\n\nThis is our @MNCourts system.\u201d
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) 1675176840

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Horowitz: Why won’t McConnell author ‘framework’ for locking up gun felons?



Here’s a novel idea for controlling gun violence and acting on “red flags.” Rather than the feds incentivizing states to “red-flag” those who haven’t committed a crime, why not incentivize states to keep those who actually shoot people with guns off the streets?

As we see again and again in America’s major cities, almost all the gun violence is committed by those with previous gun and violent felonies who commit more of the same crimes while out on parole, probation, or low-bail release pending trial. Many of them are caught multiple times illegally possessing handguns at the scenes of crimes but are not re-incarcerated.

Last week, Crime Watch Minneapolis, which constantly highlights the cases of lenient punishment for violent criminals, posted a mega-thread on Twitter detailing two dozen recent cases of violent gun felons escaping proper justice in the Minneapolis area.

\u201c\ud83d\udca5\ud83d\udca5\ud83d\udca5\nMEGA THREAD\nWe're sick of reposting these examples to the always available hypocrites in MN who bemoan "gun violence."\n\nWe hereby dismantle ANY argument from ANY Minnesota public official, representative or activist who calls for new gun laws and more gun control.\n\nShare.\u201d
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) 1654576216

For example, the group chronicled the case of Tasia Deanne White, who had 26 convictions, including 10 felonies for violent offenses and illegal possession of guns during a crime. She barely served time throughout the years and was recently charged with three new felonies, including felony possession of a gun, with two other felony cases still open. Yet Hennepin County state Judge Paul Scoggin granted her a downward sentencing departure and allowed her to serve three separate felony sentences concurrently.

It turns out that between 2013 and 2019, Minnesota prosecutors and judges chose to NOT pursue or issue minimum prison sentences in felony firearm cases 40% of the time. According to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission (MSGC), the fastest-growing crime in Minnesota between 2010 and 2018 was possession of a firearm by a convicted felon who committed a crime of violence. This is the story of nearly every major city in America.

How is it that Republicans are getting sucked into the premise of the Left by focusing solely on lawful purchases and harassing gun store owners rather than holding Democrats accountable for going soft on the ultimate red flags for gun violence?

"I think if this framework becomes the actual piece of legislation, it's a step forward on a bipartisan basis and further demonstrates to the American people that we can come together, which we have done from time to time on things like infrastructure and postal reform, to make progress for the country," McConnell said on Tuesday in endorsing the new red-flag due process violations and holding gun stores accountable for crimes committed by purchasers.

Personally, I don’t believe there is a proper federal solution for this matter, but if we are going to use federal funds to incentivize states to circumvent due process, why not dangle those funds before state and local prosecutors to lock up known gun felons who exit the revolving door of our leaky justice system? Why not spend more money on expediting their trials so we don’t have repeat violent gun felons out indefinitely on low bail, many of whom contribute to a good number of the mass shootings on city streets? Why not make it about the known criminals?

Instead, McConnell and most other Republicans credulously joined with the Left in 2018 – when they had control over all three branches – to pass the “First Step Act,” which released thousands of federal drug traffickers. As anyone with a modicum of knowledge of criminal justice knows, those serving hard time for drug dealing in federal prison are usually gang members who have committed a lot of street violence with guns throughout the years.

The First Step Act allowed thousands of hardened federal criminals to go before a judge and apply for early release based on completing dubious “anti-recidivism” programs created by left-wing NGOs. A 2020 analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times shows that judges are signing off on the release of career criminals, including top gang leaders, much to the consternation of local prosecutors who are at their wits' end trying to stem the tide of gun violence.

The Sun-Times analyzed 200 cases of early release in Chicago under the First Step Act and found that "more than 60 percent" of those who applied were granted sentence reductions by judges, "including some of the nation's most notorious criminals." At the time, 75 applications for sentence reduction were granted, 45 denied, and the rest are still pending.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass put it best when he described "gun violence" as "a politically correct term that gives politicians wiggle room."

"It's not gun violence. It's street gang violence," Kass declared. "If we really cared about these victims and their memories, we'd have the decency to call what happened to them by its real name: gang wars."

So why isn’t this the message of GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn? Why are they not jujitsuing the Democrat clamor for gun control into criminal control and blaming Democrats for their de-incarceration agenda? Well, for one, it’s because these same Republicans bought into the Koch-funded pressure groups who pushed the same agenda during the Trump administration together with Jared Kushner.

Ironically, McConnell delivered a pretty good floor speech on Tuesday about the destruction wrought on this country by Soros prosecutors and the rising tide of crime. He talked about the endless shootings, carjackings, and drug overdoses.

My hometown of Louisville is struggling too. Over the past several years, violent crime has sharply risen across the city, breaking gruesome records including record homicides and assaults. And we’ve seen carjacking more than tripl[e] in the past five years.

Last weekend alone, Louisville saw three homicides and ten nonfatal shootings. Five teenagers and a 9-year-old were shot during a single altercation at my hometown’s Big Four Bridge. Violent criminals turned a popular attraction for families and tourists into a war zone.

He is absolutely right. But it’s not just the Soros prosecutors responsible for this morass. His own party spent close to a decade joining with the left on “criminal justice reform” rather than hitting Democrats over the head for the de-incarceration agenda and pursuing tougher sentences on violent criminals and repeat offenders. He complains about record drug overdoses, but he voted to let many of the worst dealers out of prison.

Moreover, if he really believes the words he spoke on Tuesday, how could he surrender our leverage on negotiations about gun violence without demanding a “three strikes and you’re out” violent gun felon law and funding more prosecutions of these people? If you are going to sell out on the Second and Fifth Amendments, at least secure some “tough on crime” provisions in exchange for it. Why focus on purchases of 18-year-olds who never committed a felony instead of focusing on the youth who have attacked people with guns and are responsible for the epidemic of carjackings in every major city?

Then there is the issue of illegal aliens. If McConnell is promising a deal with Democrats, he can at least demand in return that they agree to immediately remove all of the illegal alien gun felons. Why do we need to retain other countries’ gun felons when we have enough of our own? Biden’s de facto suspension of ICE operations has cut the number of gun felons removed from the country in half. According to ICE data obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in fiscal year 2019, ICE removed 3,121 foreign nationals charged with or convicted of weapons violations. That number declined 46% to 1,662 aliens in FY 2021 under Biden and is expected to be much lower for this fiscal year, with the full suspension policies in place. As the CIS notes, because of the suspension of the 287(g) program, the number of gun felons at the apprehension level already declined 52% in FY 2021.

Rather than red-flagging people without due process, why not remove criminal aliens caught with guns who don’t have a due process right to be in the country anyway?

Why is it that Republicans never get anything in return for selling us out, even on the same issue and for the very policies that Democrats are culpable for their bad outcomes? The only conclusion we can draw is that Republicans don’t want the same things we do.

Horowitz: Minnesota business owner sitting in solitary confinement for violating Walz’s edict while violent criminals are released



A remarkable thing about this spirit of government tyranny and control over our bodies is that it is coinciding with the era of the laxest enforcement of basic criminal statutes of all time. Violent crime is rampant, and the border is wide open. In this sense, what we have is not only tyranny, but anarcho-tyranny, which is now being used as a means toward fascism – picking winners and losers in society based on obedience to the national agenda. Our government is now selecting for the people and behaviors it desires, even if that means making a criminal of a victim and a victim of a criminal and contorting fundamental rights upside down.

As thousands of BLM rioters who burned down half of Minneapolis remain out of jail, and as a record number of criminals remain on the streets, a business owner is now sitting in de facto solitary confinement for 90 days for the crime of having her restaurant open during the illegal lockdowns. Despite 400 studies showing the interventions never worked to stop the spread of the virus, and even though even blue states have moved on from them, Freeborn County Judge Joseph Bueltel sentenced Lisa Hanson to 90 days in jail for keeping her now-defunct Interchange Wine and Coffee Bistro open last year.

A political show trial against the right to earn a living

According to Kevin Haskell of the National Action Task Force, a legal assistance group that helped Hanson throughout the case, Lisa is now locked in a single cell for 23 hours a day and can only come out for one hour to make phone calls and take a shower. They have essentially locked her in solitary confinement and are blaming it on COVID isolation rules. But remember, concerns of COVID in jails actually led to the release of thousands of violent career criminals. Yet an American businesswoman is not only being placed in jail because of COVID, but the concern of spread is making her suffer a more severe punishment while the same pretext is used to let criminals off the hook entirely!

In the Hanson case, the prosecutor only asked for 10 days, yet Judge Bueltel gave her 90. In 2019, out of 17,355 felony convictions in Minnesota, only 3,612 were fully sentenced in accordance with the sentencing guidelines. Yet a woman who violates an unconstitutional executive order that was made under false scientific pretense and violates human rights was sentenced to more than what the prosecutor asked for.

Haskell told TheBlaze that he was not allowed to sit at the table with Hanson, who opted to represent herself. “Judge Buetel reiterated several times that Hanson was not a lawyer and was therefore not allowed to present or interpret law or Constitution and that the judge would be the one instructing the jury as to ‘The Law.’” As such, according to Haskell’s account of the trial, Hanson was not allowed to suggest in court that “the governor’s mandates or executive orders were unconstitutional or against the law." Worse, she was not allowed to pass out a copy of the relevant statute to the jury members.

“On day two, Hanson asked the judge if he was going to be giving photocopies of the statutes to the jury for deliberation,” claimed Haskell, “and the judge indicated the jurors were too stupid to understand and that he would be giving any instruction to the jury about what the law is so they don’t get confused as it was ‘too complex’ for them.”

Is this even America? “So Lisa was accused of breaking the law, challenged immediately its constitutionality, compelled the court to answer to the law, but not allowed to use, say, cite, quote, nor display in writing the law she was challenging in the court trying to convict her,” summed up Haskell.

Violent criminals and left-wing attacks on government are totally fine

Now we know why they have emptied the jails and prisons in Minnesota. It was to make room for business owners like Lisa Hanson. Just two days before the Hanson ruling, the state dismissed charges against Mike Forcia, the man who admitted organizing the riot to topple the Christopher Columbus statue at the state Capitol last June. As Alpha News reports, “The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office supported a dismissal, citing a Minnesota policy that favors ‘alternatives to conviction and confinement for people who have not previously been convicted of a crime.’”

Guess who was never convicted of a crime and never engaged in public vandalism either? Lisa Hanson. In her case, Judge Bueltel waxed poetic about the need to make an example of people who try to lead political movements against the government. Yet the leader of a violent mob that damaged public property, rather than Lisa who was merely utilizing her own property against the wishes of an illegal executive order, was deemed unsuited for jail. “There was context for this unlawful act that was committed out of civil disobedience that we should seek to understand and reckon with in determining the legal system’s response to this act,” prosecutors said in one court document from Forcia’s case.

Perhaps you can forgive the state for dismissing the Forcia case, because, after all, it was only property that was damaged. It’s not like he smashed property in the U.S. Capitol, only in the state Capitol. Well, Alpha New is reporting that Brayshaun Gibson, a man accused of knocking out a Minneapolis cop during a riot last August, will only serve a year of home confinement without having to go to prison. A viral video of Gibson hitting the officer with a metal trash can lid has been circulating since the time of the incident.

Police Officer Hit By Trash Can Lid During Minneapolis Unrest www.youtube.com

As part of the plea deal, charges against Gibson were dismissed for allegedly throwing large rocks at a police car in an earlier incident and for stealing from Home Depot at least 10 times. First-time “offenders” are only locked up if they are leaders of a cause not so popular with the judges of Sodom.

It’s not just violent criminals who commit crimes in the name of BLM who are let off the hook. In general, the deterrent against crime has disappeared to the point that carjackings are now rampant and spilling over into the suburbs of the Twin Cities. According to local police, carjackings are so common that they are now advising people not to exit their cars after a fender-bender. They say there has been a 300% increase in carjackings since 2019, and “there have been a total of 3879 cars taken.” Police are also warning citizens about being followed by car to their homes, where the criminals will rob them and gain access to their homes.

MPD crime alert on recent home invasions and robberies, we've posted many of them.\n\nTwo or more suspects are following victims by car, to their home and robbing them. These suspects are reported to be armed and some victims have been physically assaulted.\n.pic.twitter.com/WxIy9YzqJa
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) 1638991758
Police in the Minnesota suburban city of Medina warn about rise in crime and that car thieves and criminals have \u201cbecome bolder\u201d.pic.twitter.com/I3YPk1hJ7F
— Alpha News (@Alpha News) 1639487074

Wouldn’t the prosecutors and judges want to make an example of the carjackers by sentencing them above the guidelines? Well, considering that Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea just voted to commute the sentence of a woman who drowned her newborn baby, it is quite evident that no amount of violence is enough to keep someone locked up in a Minnesota prison.

It’s a new form of “Minnesota nice.” No, it doesn’t stem from a philosophical aversion to incarceration. It’s all about persecuting We the People with punitive punishment if we exercise our constitutional rights, while accommodating those who endanger the public with violent crime. Anarcho-tyranny at its best.

Horowitz: Violent criminal released by New Hampshire judge accused of brutally raping woman in cemetery six days later



These are the victim stories that are never told by politicians. These are the criminals who need to be locked up but are increasingly let out on the streets because criminal justice reform is all about the criminal, not the victim.

Amuri Diole represents everything that is wrong with our justice system. He was arrested on April 29 for allegedly assaulting a woman in a Manchester, New Hampshire, cemetery for two hours, smashing her head on a grave marker, raping her, putting a knife to her neck, and threatening to kill her. Like almost every one of these heinous criminal acts, this one was allegedly committed by a man who was incorrigibly violent and should never have been on the streets but was indeed released just six days before.

According to the Manchester Union Leader, Diole was arrested in November 2018 for reportedly brutally beating a man in Merrimack who was nice enough to employ him, despite his troubled background. During the attack, Diole allegedly broke the nose, jaw, and eye sockets of his victim. Despite five years of cycling in and out of psychiatric hospitals and being diagnosed with homicidal tendencies, Diole was not kept off the streets even after this demonic assault. He was in and out of jail since 2018, racking up more criminal arrests. Over a year later, the victim of the assault still had not gotten justice, and in January, Superior Court Judge Charles Temple ruled that Diole was incompetent to stand trial.

Freeze frame at this point. One would think that the alternative to going to prison would be locking this man up in a psychiatric institute. After all, if someone is so violent that he can't control himself, he is even more dangerous on the streets than the non-mentally ill criminals. Yet our system now uses the criminal's mental status as an excuse to simply release him. This is happening throughout the country. In this case, Diole was released from jail on April 23. The judge cited state law that gives prosecutors 90 days to obtain an order for involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, something that is becoming very hard given that most psychiatrists are leftists and are unwilling to commit criminals.

Well, this unnamed female victim wasn't given 90 days to prepare to be raped. Nor was the victim of the previous crime for which Diore never stood trial informed of his release. The victim in the Merrimack assault told the Union Leader that he was not surprised Diole never left the cemetery after last week's alleged rape. "He's not afraid of consequences. He's not remorseful. Everyone who knows Amuri knows he's dangerous," he said.

And that is the hallmark of our criminal justice system.

According to court documents, Diole moved to the United States from Congo about 17 years ago at age 10 and lived a troubled life beginning in his teen years. It's unclear whether his family came over as refugees, but most immigrants from Congo over the past two decades have been resettled under the refugee program, many of them in New England.

The question everyone should be asking is why Republicans are not running on plugging all the loopholes that allow repeat criminals to escape justice and needlessly victimize others? The original term "criminal justice reform" was coined by Ronald Reagan to promote an agenda on behalf of victims of crime to ensure the bad guys are taken off the streets. He described it as an effort to "protect the innocent and put the professional criminals in jail where they belong." One of Reagan's particular priorities was ensuring that the criminally insane are not let back on the streets. How many Republicans ever discuss our under-incarceration problem?

The reality is that it's not only drug dealers — themselves most often violent and committing other crimes — who are escaping justice in this pro-criminal environment. Violent criminals are rarely punished commensurately with their crimes. At a time when the government claims to have zero tolerance for insurrection, federal prosecutors from Oregon dropped charges or are expected to drop charges on all but seven of the 97 Portland rioters arrested on federal charges. Remember, these are some of the worst offenders out of the thousands of rioters, riots that included attacks on a federal courthouse and involved the blinding of DHS agents with lasers. Only one individual is headed to prison for any amount of time. All charges of assault against federal agents for the remaining individuals, including one suspect accused of placing an agent in a chokehold, were dropped.

But this favoritism is not only for people beating and burning under the sacred banner of Black Lives Matter; it's for general criminals as well. Crime victim advocates in Minnesota recently pointed to a case of a man convicted a little more than a year ago for stomping someone to the point of great bodily harm, yet his 117-month sentence was stayed:

Just gonna set this here for future reference.Derek Lamont Leake, Jr, 20.IN CUSTODY on PC weapons.Convicted in… https://t.co/QmGmoMdBGx

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) 1620089575.0

Again, these cases are not the exception, but the rule. We now learn that Demond Goudy, the suspect in the murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams at a Chicago McDonald's drive-through last month, was out on bond for four separate felony cases.

One GOP governor after another sheds crocodile tears over giving criminals a "second chance," but so many of them have dozens of chances and still serve little or no time. As my TheBlaze colleague, Sarah Taylor, recently reported, the suspect charged in the brutal stomping murder of Maryland police officer Keith Heacock in Delmar, Delaware, accrued 38 prior arrests in just a decade but doesn't appear to have served much time in prison. To this day, Biden has failed to mention a word about Officer Heacock and this terrible travesty that occurred in his home state.

Then there are criminal aliens. We like importing other countries' criminals and won't even throw the book at them. Despite having two prior arrests, Jesus Leal-Corona was never deported. In 2019, he killed 24-year-old Frankie Hensley while driving drunk in New Jersey. Breitbart reports that he was sentenced to just five years in prison. By the time the system is done with him, it would be surprising if he doesn't get out much earlier and remain in the country indefinitely.

I began focusing on public affairs as a kid during the peak of the last crime wave in the early 1990s. I watched the citizens rise up and demand action, a call that was largely heeded by both parties, including the current president. Now, we can hardly find a self-described conservative willing to hold the line on violent crime. That's a testament to the success of the left in moving the Overton window so far from the values of our grandparents.

University of Minnesota student leader caught on video telling peers to place fake police calls to make life hell for cops



A member of the University of Minnesota's student government was caught on video imploring her peers to make the lives of police officers "hell" by placing bogus calls for help.

Lauren Meyers is the chief financial officer of the Minnesota Student Association and the co-chair of the Office for Student Affairs Mental Health committee. During a video conference with fellow members of the MSA, Meyers instructed her fellow student government members to use several tactics to "annoy the s*** out of" campus law enforcement.

During the video call, another student asked Meyers, "When you say disrupt UMPD, what exactly do you mean by that?"

Meyers replied, "Make their lives hell. Annoy the s*** out of them. Like, use up their resources, make their officers show up to something."

Here it is. We received a copy of the video that was deleted from Reddit.#UMN Student Association Rep Lauren Meyer… https://t.co/BfMTWJFV7R

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) 1619482141.0

The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association and Law Enforcement Labor Services issued a joint statement on Tuesday, where the police unions called for an investigation into the situation and warned that making phony 911 calls can be a felony.

"Minnesota law prohibits using emergency calls to report a false emergency or crime, and claims that lead to serious injury or death is a felony publishable by 10 years imprisonment and/or a maximum fine of $20,000," the letter reads.

Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association Executive Director Brian Peters added, "Actively planning to thwart UMPD by generating false calls for help is insulting to the overwhelming majority of the campus community that rely on public safety services."

"Last month the campus community had 13 incidents of aggravated assault, 52 burglaries, 22 car thefts, 4 sexual assaults, numerous thefts, and a murder on or near campus," Peters continued. "We're frustrated that elected student leaders would purposefully choose to stir further division to make the campus less safe."

Law Enforcement Labor Services Executive Director Jim Mortenson said, "Everyone deserves to be safe, and advocating to impede police from assisting victims of crime is mindboggling."

The police unions called for an outside agency to "conduct a criminal investigation into this incident to determine if charges are warranted."

Meyers' comments were reportedly made while MSA members were discussing a recent letter the student government sent to University of Minnesota president Joan Gabel. The letter demands the resignation of University of Minnesota Police Department Chief Matt Clark.

The letter alleges that Clark has failed to increase "campus safety and wellness" for students of color and allowed the "utilization of UMPD as a physical arm of the oppressive state to subjugate and silence community members."

In the letter, the Minnesota Student Association threatens "direct actions" if "our demands are not met."

Two members of the University of Minnesota's student government denounced Meyers' comments, according to Alpha News.

"We are two members of the Minnesota Student Association (MSA) Executive Board and we wholeheartedly denounce the comments that were made during the April 14, 2021 Executive Board meeting regarding police interference on campus," students Andrew Knuppel and Morgan McElroy said. "We call upon our fellow student leaders who have stayed silent over the last 72 hours to denounce the comments made in the clip that's been widely circulating in the media."

"To achieve any progress on critical campus issues such as police reform and campus safety, elected student leaders should strive to engage with administrators and campus law enforcement collaboratively," the MSA members added. "The public comments made by our colleague, unintended or otherwise, have cast a dark shadow on what should be a constructive dialogue among elected student government leaders, the student body, administration, and other stakeholders."

"The University respects the autonomy of the Minnesota Student Association as an independent governance organization for undergraduate students, including the autonomy of its membership to speak freely," a school spokesperson told Alpha News. "However, in this instance, the University unequivocally disagrees with the ideas expressed about disrupting UMPD's daily work. These ideas are illegal and would directly conflict with ongoing efforts to keep our campus community safe."

RELATED: Video shows woke professor becomes combative when student says police officers are 'heroes'

Anti-cop protester on bullhorn urges crowd to dox Minneapolis police, post photos of their families — and 'start doin' pull ups to their house'



Following the police-involved fatal shooting of a black motorist in Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, an anti-cop protester used a megaphone to urge members of a growing crowd to dox officers, identify and post photos of their family members, and "start doin' pull ups to their house."

Cellphone video showing a line of police officers blocking off a street following the shooting caught audio of the man on the megaphone: "I need everybody to go to Brooklyn Center police ... website, you go through the officers that are on duty ... and then you find their names, then you put it into Facebook, and you put it into Instagram. Then you start taking screenshots of their family and who they are, and then what happens is, 'Hey bro, your dad just killed my son.' That's a reality. We're gonna start gettin' their badges, you start doin' pull ups to their house. You let 'em know ..."

Here's the clip. (Content warning: Profanity):

Video/audio of person threatening to hunt down police and their families. https://t.co/OcFkPXArz5
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls)1618183727.0

What do we know so far about the shooting?

Brooklyn Center Police said in a statement that an officer pulled over a man for a traffic violation and discovered he had an outstanding warrant. As police attempted to take the motorist into custody, he reportedly tried to get back into the vehicle and drive away, and an officer shot the motorist, who drove several blocks before he hit another vehicle and died.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) identified the fatally shot motorist as 20-year-old Daunte Wright.

His mother, Katie Wright, told reporters she received a phone call from her son telling her police pulled him over reportedly for having air fresheners dangling from the vehicle's rearview mirror. It's illegal to hang anything from rearview mirrors in Minnesota.

Wright said she told her son to put the officer on the phone so she could provide insurance information, and the last thing she heard was police telling her son to get out of the vehicle and demanding he refrain from running.

"I heard police officers say, 'Daunte, don't run,'" she recalled. The call ended, she said, and Wright immediately phoned back and reached her son's girlfriend, who was with him in the vehicle, and she told Wright that her son had been shot.

How did folks react to the doxxing threat against police and their families?

While some commenters on Twitter suggested that police have it coming, others disagreed with the doxxing idea:

  • "Isn't setting up police and their [families] to be attacked a hate crime?" one commenter asked. "Why did they not arrest every one of them there?"
  • "I'm just a *bit* concerned that vigilante justice, personal vendettas & mob violence may just cause more harm than good.... just my opinion," another user said.
  • "Where's the FBI here[?]" another commenter asked. "This is direct threats to law enforcement and civilians. Seriously I know people in Brooklyn Center that are freaking out because of this."
  • "Really? And this isn't a crime?" another user wondered. "No sympathy for any of them when they get what they deserve."
  • "Uttering threats. Book him boys," another commenter wrote. "Only s**tty human beings want to go after people's families. They're psychopaths."

NBC News reported that a crowd of up to 200 people threw rocks and other objects at the Brooklyn Center police department building, which prompted the state to mobilize its National Guard.

The unrest is compounded by the ongoing trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who stands accused of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter in connection to George Floyd's May 2020 death — which sparked nationwide rioting that lasted all summer.

Christmas lights on home ripped as 'harmful,' 'reminder of divisions ... systemic biases.' Then anonymous critic gets holiday haranguing.



A Minnesota couple received an anonymous letter Monday criticizing the Christmas light display on their St. Anthony home as "harmful," Fox News noted.

Say what?

The letter to Kim Hunt and her husband started out like so: "I couldn't help but notice your Christmas lights display. During these unprecedented times, we have all experienced challenges which casual words just don't describe what we're feeling. The idea of twinkling, colorful lights are a reminder of divisions that continue to run through our society, a reminder of systemic biases against our neighbors who don't celebrate Christmas or who can't afford to put up lights of their own."

It adds that "we must do the work of educating ourselves about the harmful impact an outward facing display like yours can have."

Here's a look at the letter — and the "harmful" Christmas lights:

ICYMI: Here's the actual photo of the "offensive" Christmas lights... https://t.co/jIl9mj2L7A
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls)1607434583.0

The letter writer then says, "I challenge you to respect the dignity of all people, while striving to learn from differences, ideas, and opinions of our neighbors. We must come together collectively and challenge these institutional inequities. St. Anthony is a community welcoming of all people, and we must demand better for ourselves."

What did Hunt have to say?

Hunt told Fox News that she and her husband were "very surprised, shocked, and saddened by the letter" — particularly since the lights give her a sense of "joy" when she returns from her job as a nurse working with COVID-19 patients.

She added to the cable network that "these times we live in are so divisive" and that it's "a sad statement that Christmas lights have to be a target."

"We need to be inclusive of everyone, and let's face it, a lot of people put up holiday lights or decorate their homes for other occasions to bring beauty and happiness to what can be a very ugly world," Hunt told Fox News, adding that three other homes in the area have received the same letter.

What did observers have to say?

As you might expect, the letter writer got an earful from Twitter users who saw the Crime Watch post containing the photo of the letter.

Fox News said former Baltimore Ravens quarterback Derek Anderson observed: "Saw this coming a long time ago. 'If I can't have it nobody can' or 'if they have it we all deserve it' that's not life."

Others had similar reactions:

  • "Ironic that the letter writer is doing exactly what they accuse the homeowner of doing — not being accepting of others," another commenter said. "I would redouble my lights."
  • "People just need to stop already!!" another user declared. "If I lived in that neighborhood I'd help the owner put up even more lights."
  • "If I were the recipient of that letter, I would put up THREE TIMES the amount of lights that I originally had put up," another commenter noted.