Former Minnesota state trooper John Nagel says Somali-linked gang violence will keep spiraling without real enforcement, and he wants to know where Rep. Ilhan Omar is.
John Nagel, a 30-year veteran of the state patrol now challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, told Fox News Digital that soft-on-crime Democratic leadership has emboldened gang members across the Twin Cities and left residents afraid for their safety.
A string of gang-related incidents this month included the shooting of two teens outside an Eden Prairie High School homecoming football game and the recovery of more than 100 shell casings in a Bloomington neighborhood. Nagel put the blame squarely on Democrats who, he said, have restrained police and refused to prosecute.
He asked a blunt question about the congresswoman who represents the district.
"Where is Ilhan Omar in all of this?"
Nagel said a representative for that area should be at community meetings, issuing statements, or sitting down to ask how to stop the violence. He said he does not see her doing any of it. Fox News Digital reached out to Omar’s office for comment.
Eighteen-year-old Adam Abdihakeem Adam was charged Friday in the Eden Prairie homecoming shooting with two counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree riot. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office said in a press release that Adam “will be held accountable” and called community violence “completely unacceptable.”
Moriarty’s office also said no cases tied to the Bloomington shell-casing incident had been submitted for charging consideration. Spokesperson Daniel Borgertpoepping told Fox News Digital that any such cases “will be thoroughly reviewed” if they come in.
Nagel accused Democrats, including Moriarty, of keeping their heads in the sand while crime spreads into the suburbs. He argued the public is done waiting.
"We need enforcement, we need arrests and we need incarceration. Otherwise, this is going to continue to spiral."
That call for basic accountability lands against a longer record of controversy around Omar herself, including a reported criminal investigation into alleged immigration fraud that has kept her under national scrutiny.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher spoke at a news conference this week and did not soften the description. He said a “big chunk of the problem” is the failure to hold gang members accountable and that Moriarty’s office needs to be more “aggressive” in prosecuting juveniles.
Fletcher went further on who is driving the violence.
"98% of these gang members are Somali"
He said the broader “East African” label is not fair, and added: “I think we just have to say what it is and not run away from the term.”
Nagel made the same point from a law-enforcement angle. He said Minnesota has Latino gangs, Asian gangs, Black gangs, and Somali gangs, and that naming the problem is not prejudice. “This is not being prejudicial,” he said. He called it a “Somali problem” because that is “who’s showing up.”
As a former officer, he rejected race as the issue and focused on conduct. “It’s ridiculous,” Nagel said. “I’m a police officer. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what color you are.”
Readers tracking Omar’s other legal and immigration fights have already seen claims that DHS officials raised deportation questions over alleged marriage fraud, another front where facts, not feelings, are supposed to decide the outcome.
Nagel’s core charge is simple: politicians chose soft-on-crime theory over public safety, and gangs noticed.
"They're being restrained by politicians, people that are trying soft on crime, people that are trying to send somebody other than a police officer to take care of issues, and it's not working."
He said Democratic rule in Minnesota over the years left “gang members and then just crooks in general” emboldened. Ordinary people, he argued, want enforcement. “The people do,” Nagel said. “They’re tired of it.”
He rejected new legislation or more grant money as the answer. “We don’t need to pass any more laws,” Nagel said. “We don’t need any more people asking for money to help their group. We need to take the laws that we have and prosecute people.” He floated a gang task force as one tool, but the priority he named was arrests and incarceration under existing statutes.
That same demand for equal application of the law has surfaced in other Omar-related cases, including when a Minnesota man was sentenced to 14 months for spraying the congresswoman, a reminder that courts can move when prosecutors choose to.
Nagel also pointed at Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison as part of the leadership climate he says failed to back police. Fox News Digital reached out to both offices for comment. No on-the-record responses appear in the available reporting.
Meanwhile the violence is no longer confined to a handful of city blocks. Eden Prairie and Bloomington are suburbs. Homecoming football and neighborhood streets are ordinary American settings. When more than 100 shell casings turn up and teens are shot outside a high school game, parents do not need a lecture on root causes. They need arrests.
Omar faces Nagel and independent DeVelle Jackson in the upcoming midterms for the 5th District seat. The race will test whether voters in and around the Twin Cities still accept the soft-on-crime status quo Nagel describes, or whether they want the enforcement majority he says already exists outside the political class.
Separate from the gang cases, Walz has floated a $10 million emergency relief package for small businesses hit by the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. Nagel’s critique runs the opposite direction: secure communities first, then talk about aid packages.
Federal attention on Omar has not faded either. ICE has withheld FOIA records on her while citing active enforcement proceedings, and analysts have explained why immigration officials say she cannot simply be deported on the marriage allegations alone. Local street crime and federal integrity questions are different files. Both turn on whether officials enforce the rules they already have.
Nagel’s warning is not complicated. When politicians restrain cops, excuse disorder, and go missing after the shell casings are counted, gangs fill the space. Minnesota will get the safety it is willing to enforce.
