On Thursday's Fox & Friends, the show informed viewers both of the Somali American in Minnesota who was arrested by the FBI for allegedly planning to attack the Mall of America, but also of the problem of Somali Americans engaged in violent gang activity in the state.
Fox & Friends
October 8, 2026
7:34 a.m. Eastern
LAWRENCE JONES: So an 18-year-old Minnesota man is under arrest and accused of plotting a mass casualty attack at the mall of America. Newly filed court documents reveal that the FBI had been tracking him for months. Documents show alleged conversations about joining a terrorist group in Somalia and eventually carrying out an attack here in the United States.
The suspect allegedly said he couldn't wait to kill non-believers and set October 24th as the day for the attack, saying there would be, quote, "a lot of people." He sent an FBI informant a link to an event at the mall of America. This arrest comes as Minnesota law enforcement leaders demand a new approach to Somali gang violence in the Twin Cities. Listen.
BOOKER HODGES, BLOOMINGTON POLICE CHIEF: This is going to be your outfit. We will find you, you are going to jail, we are going to lock you up. (editing jump) We've had gangs of all different ethnicities, but right now we are dealing with gangs who are Somali Americans.
DAWANNA WITT, HENNEPIN COUNTY SHERIFF: We know we used to have a gang strike force here in Minnesota that has pretty much disseminated, right? But it's time to bring it back under better leadership, and we can't take our foot off the gas.
JONES: Let's bring in Town Hall columnist based in Minnesota Dustin Grage. Dustin, thanks so much for joining the program. I want to go back to what the police chief said. He said, "Look, we've dealt with gangs from all different communities, but what I'm dealing with right now, it's gangs in the Somali community." What is he talking about?
DUSTIN GRAGE, TOWN HALL: Yeah, what he's talking about, Lawrence, is over the last week, in particular, we've seen a massive spike in Somali gang violence, and that's what people have been saying. It's been breaking through to normal people who normally don't pay attention to politics, and everyone's been saying, "Somali gangs, we have to address this." So what does the legacy media immediately start to go and do? "Hey, we have to stop calling them Somali gangs -- we just have to be calling them gangs, it's going to put all these people under a microscope, it's going to hurt their community."
But what happens not even 24 hours later after this is all put -- perpetrated by the Islamic media here? We have an Islamic terrorist literally threatening to shoot up the Mall of America.
(...)
The big story this last week ultimately was we actually had a homecoming game. One of these Somali gangs ended up shooting out each other in front of the football game. They ended up evacuating the entire stadium -- thousands of people here potentially affected. And later on, they actually ended up canceling the homecoming dance as well -- an event that wasn't affected by all of this because of the Somali gang violence. So this is becoming a massive problem. It's happening in grocery store parking lots, gas station parking lots -- five miles, again, away from this high school homecoming game.
And then, just 15 miles down the road, it's happening in Bloomington, and, of course, we have this actual terrorist threat at the Mall of America not far from here. So -- and it's bleeding into these affluent communities, and I think that's ultimately why it's getting the attention because, ultimately, over the last decade, we've had this problem in Minneapolis, but, because it's in the southern metro now, people are finally paying attention.
. steve malzberg
. steve malzberg
. steve malzberg
