On the night of March 1, 2019, in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, 17-year-old Abdiwasa Mohamed Farah, a Black/African American male, was fatally shot. He and five other individuals had driven to the Red Sea restaurant to buy marijuana. While their vehicle was parked behind the establishment, two occupants went to the front of the restaurant for the transaction.
Shortly before midnight, another car approached from behind.
Two armed men, later identified as Abdilahi Muse Ibrahim and Omar Nur Hassan, both 21 at the time, got out of their vehicle. They walked toward the car where Farah and two others were seated in the back and opened fire, unleashing a barrage of bullets into the vehicle. Farah was struck nine times, with two shots to his head and seven to his back. Another young man in the car was also hit multiple times and was left paralyzed from his injuries. A third person sustained non-critical injuries.
The investigation that followed connected the shooting to a larger pattern of gang-related violence in the Twin Cities' Somali community. Warrants for the arrest of Ibrahim and Hassan were issued on April 10, 2019, as investigators believed they had both fled Minnesota. Ibrahim was apprehended in Texas and taken into custody on May 9. Hassan was located in Kenya and arrested by U.S. Marshals in July 2019.
Both men faced legal consequences for their roles in the deadly shooting. Abdilahi Ibrahim, a known member of the Somali Outlawz gang, pleaded guilty to intentional second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 27 and a half years in prison. Omar Hassan was found guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and attempted premeditated first-degree murder. He received a mandatory life sentence.
