Eden Prairie mayor on Somali gang violence: 'We're not alone'

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (FOX 9) - After two shootings in Eden Prairie in less than a week, both believed to have connections to Somali gang violence, the city’s mayor has since called for a regional task force to address violence across Twin Cities suburbs.

Eden Prairie Mayor Ron Case joined FOX 9’s All Day to discuss what he believes can be done to curb violent incidents, and what he believes is the root cause of them.

Eden Prairie mayor on gang violence

What we know:

Although there is no known connection between the two, a shooting outside the Eden Prairie High School homecoming game against Minnetonka on Oct. 2, and a Speedway gas station near West 78th Street and Eden Prairie Road on Oct. 5, have both the mayor and residents expressing concerns.

Case has since called for the creation of a regional task force to address gang activity, bringing together state, county and local law enforcement along with prosecutors, schools, social services, youth-service organizations and Somali community leaders.

"We're not alone. Certainly there's been shootings in Bloomington, Edina, St. Louis Park. And I want to be really clear that calling for a regional task force in no way implies that a lot is not going on right now… It's not like this is some new novel thing that's not already happening. My hope would simply be to draw attention, number one, to what is going on," Case said on Wednesday. "I think one of our roles is to educate people that we are doing a lot. I think secondly, if you get all those groups I just mentioned into the same room. And you add a political piece to it in terms of getting mayors and some county commissioners and directing again some of the feedback that we are hearing and also the educational piece going back out. But then, if you can ideally pull the Somali community in, have elders, have, maybe some Somali moms… Maybe some of the students, people that are not okay with what's going on, they condemn this. They want it fixed because they're in danger as well. And that would be my goal, to get all those people into the same room."

Case previously said that the group's work should not only hold violent offenders accountable, but also develop strategies to prevent young people from becoming involved in gangs, which he reiterated on Wednesday.

"We need to find them. We need to apprehend them. We need to put them through the court system, and we need to have some of the perpetrators serve jail time," said Case. "What I want to remind people of is that, it's less than a third of 1% of the 110,000 Somali people who live in this state. We have 4,000 individuals and families in Eden Prairie. And they've been an integral part of our community for 30 years now… I just want to make sure that as we hold these perpetrators, these young Somali males 16 to 20 [years old], responsible and actually take them off the street, that we do not broad brush stroke the entire Somali community."

Addressing resident concerns

Dig deeper:

At a city council meeting on Oct. 6, the first since both shootings happened, residents urged city leaders to move beyond statements and take stronger steps to address violence in the community.

On Wednesday, Case sought to reassure residents of their ongoing efforts toward reducing crime.

"We will work tirelessly to help to make sure people feel safe, and we'll partner with agencies across the state. And when incidences like this occur, and it's regional, I think that's why the task force concept is a really good idea to at least to pull together all these other efforts that are occurring," Case said. "We are increasing our patrols on the street already, and we'll do what we need to do. And that's all I can offer people, because you can't predict what's unpredictable."