Hennepin County Attorney Moriarty on ‘what works’ combatting youth gang violence
Moriarty responds to recent gun violence
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is addressing recent Somali youth gang violence for the first time since a shooting at the Eden Prairie High School homecoming. FOX 9’s Maury Glover has the details.
(FOX 9) - Mary Moriarty says stopping gun violence among young people takes intervention, community trust and the certainty of getting caught.
How Moriarty says intervention works
What we know:
After a series of shootings involving young Somali men, Moriarty shared what she believes works and does not work in preventing gun violence by groups of young people.
"Nobody deserves to be around gun violence. I'll just say that. It's scary. It shouldn't happen," said Moriarty. "If long sentences deterred gun violence, there would be none. They're not thinking about what my sentence might be. They're not thinking about that at all. Deterrence is about certainty of getting caught.
Why you should care:
Moriarty said it is important to keep track of the people who are at those shootings because they will most likely become the next person to be shot or pull the trigger.
"Many of these things are retaliatory. We know that. So we try to intervene with group violence intervention, those kinds of interventions to reach out to the young people who are there but didn't pull a trigger or something like that," said Moriarty.
Why Somali community trust matters
What they're saying:
Moriarty said a lack of trust between the Somali community and local law enforcement is a problem because both sides need each other to help solve it.
"We need to bring in the Somali community as we have with other types of communities to talk about these issues. And we've had great success with that," said Moriarty.
Moriarty said that outreach has worked with other communities and should be part of the conversation around these shootings.
The Source: Information compiled by reporting from FOX 9's Maury Glover.