Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara speaks during a press conference regarding the Annunciation Church shooting in Minneapolis, Minn., Aug. 28, 2025. (Tim Evans/Reuters)
During the interview, he stated that the young people committing the crimes were not "poor kids from Minneapolis," but rather kids that come from out of town who take "mommy's Mercedes-Benz to Dinkytown, and they don't know where they are."
"Groups of kids, groups of East African kids that are coming from surrounding communities and not just one community, kind of all over the place," O'Hara told WCCO.
After the interview, a petition on Change.org demanded an apology from O'Hara, saying that the East African community of Minneapolis "has already been carrying the weight of unfair scrutiny for years" and that the chief's comment would "deepen that burden."
The Minneapolis Somali community has faced scrutiny on a national level in recent days after a bombshell report revealed a series of alleged financial schemes that ended with terrorists getting taxpayer dollars. Ryan Thorpe and Christopher F. Rufo of the Manhattan Institute found that Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist organization in Somalia, was receiving funds that could be traced back to Minnesota.
"Every scrap of economic activity, in the Twin Cities, in America, throughout Western Europe, anywhere Somalis are concentrated, every cent that is sent back to Somalia benefits Al-Shabaab in some way," a former official who worked on the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force told Thorpe and Rufo.
Women walk along a tree-lined street in Minneapolis’ Cedar–Riverside neighborhood, home to one of the largest Somali communities in the U.S. (Michael Dorgan/Fox News Digital)
MINNESOTA TAXPAYER DOLLARS FUNNELED TO AL-SHABAAB TERROR GROUP, REPORT ALLEGES
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn, who praised Trump's decision, wrote a letter on Friday to U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel Rosen demanding an investigation. The letter was also signed by Emmer's fellow Minnesota Republicans, Rep. Pete Stauber, Rep. Michelle Fischbach, and Rep. Brad Finstad.
"It is alleged that Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the nation, has been sending millions back to Somalia via the hawala network, an informal money trafficking network which is notorious for funds ending up in terrorist networks, and in this instance, Al-Shabaab," the letter reads.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) speaks during a press conference with members of the Republican Study Committee and other members of House Republican leadership, on the 28th day of the government shutdown in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 28, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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The lawmakers cited the various cases involving members of the Somali community, including the Feeding our Future fraud scheme, fraud in the Housing Stabilization Services program, Child Care Assistance program and Minnesota’s Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention program.
"It is bad enough that these individuals are defrauding our state, taking services and funds away from children and the most vulnerable, but now there is a good reason to believe that Minnesota taxpayer dollars are going straight into terrorists’ hands. These new allegations present not only a serious betrayal of taxpayer trust, but also a grave threat to our national security," the letter states.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Walz's office for comment.
Rachel Wolf is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and FOX Business.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/minneapolis-police-chief-issues-apology-linking-somali-youth-local-crime