Rastem Mohamed Abubakar, 24, a male Oromo-American, was found shot to death inside a parked car in south Minneapolis on the night of November 22, 2015. Police were called just before 8 p.m. to the parking lot by the Franklin Housing Cooperative near East Franklin Avenue and 22nd/23rd Avenue South, where gunfire had shattered the quiet of a Sunday evening.
Inside the vehicle officers discovered Abubakar and a second victim, 19-year-old Abdulahi Kadir Awuni, both beyond help; a third man in the car was gravely hurt but survived. The medical examiner later confirmed Abubakar died from a single gunshot wound to the head, while Awuni suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
Detectives quickly concluded the attack was targeted. Witness accounts and early investigative leads suggested more than one gunman approached the parked car, exchanged words with its occupants, and opened fire before fleeing on foot through the lot. Officers canvassed the building and surrounding blocks for surveillance and spoke with neighbors, including Somali-speaking officers who worked the case alongside homicide investigators that night and into the next day.
In the days that followed, the killings reverberated across the Cedar-Riverside and Seward communities. At a packed community meeting, police leaders appealed directly to East African residents—Somali and Oromo alike—for help identifying the shooters, stressing that the investigation hinged on witness cooperation. Community advocates and local officials echoed the call, describing the ambush as brazen and the loss as deeply felt among young people who knew both men.
As of the most recent public reporting shortly after the murders, no arrests had been made and no suspects had been named. Minneapolis police continued to field tips through the department’s homicide unit and Crime Stoppers, emphasizing that any detail—no matter how small—could help explain why the meeting in that remote corner of the parking lot turned into an execution and who carried it out.
