GOP challenger and former state trooper John Nagel says Twin Cities Somali gang violence will spiral without real enforcement, and asks where Rep. Ilhan Omar is.
John Nagel, a Minnesota native with 30 years as a state trooper, is running against Rep. Ilhan Omar in the state’s 5th Congressional District and is not soft-pedaling the violence hitting Twin Cities suburbs.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Nagel tied a recent string of gang-linked attacks to Democratic soft-on-crime policies and said Omar has been missing in action while her district and nearby communities absorb the damage.
This month alone, two teens were shot outside an Eden Prairie high school football game. In a Bloomington neighborhood, more than 100 shell casings were recovered after another gang-related incident. Nagel says the pattern is not a mystery, and neither is the political failure behind it.
Nagel put the question directly to the congresswoman who represents the area.
He said he expects a member of Congress to show up, speak up, or sit down with local leaders when violence surges. He does not see that from Omar.
"Where is Ilhan Omar in all of this?"
Nagel continued:
"I would think that as a congressman that represents this particular area that she'd be at these meetings or she'd have a statement or she'd be sitting down and saying, ‘Hey, how can we help this? How could we stop this?’ And I don't see her."
Fox News Digital reached out to Omar’s office for comment. No response is reported in the available coverage. The same outreach went to Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Nagel will face Omar and independent candidate DeVelle Jackson in the upcoming midterm election for the U.S. House seat.
On Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office charged 18-year-old Adam Abdihakeem Adam in connection with the Eden Prairie homecoming football game shooting. The charges include two counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree riot.
Moriarty said the defendant will face consequences and framed the response as coordinated and professional.
"Mr. Adam will be held accountable."
She also said:
"Violence in our communities is completely unacceptable and it requires a professional, coordinated response, which happened here."
The Bloomington case looks different so far. Moriarty spokesperson Daniel Borgertpoepping told Fox News Digital that no cases tied to that incident have been submitted for charging consideration. If they are, he said, “they’ll be thoroughly reviewed.”
That gap, arrests and shell casings on one side, charging decisions still pending on the other, is exactly what Nagel and local law enforcement are hammering.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher held a press conference this week and refused to blur the picture. He said a “big chunk of the problem” is the failure to hold gang members accountable, and he called on Moriarty’s office to be more “aggressive” in prosecuting juveniles.
Fletcher also rejected vague labels. He said “98% of these gang members are Somali,” and that a broader “East African” tag is not “fair.”
"I think we just have to say what it is and not run away from the term."
Nagel made the same point in plainer terms. He said Minnesota has Latino gangs, Asian gangs, Black gangs, and Somali gangs, and naming them is not prejudice. He called it a “Somali problem” because that is “who’s showing up.”
He rejected the race panic that shuts down enforcement talk.
"It's ridiculous. I'm a police officer. I don't care who you are. I don't care what color you are."
Nagel’s core charge is simple: Democratic governance in Minnesota has trained criminals to expect leniency.
"Because of how the Democrats have run Minnesota over the years, these gang members and then just crooks in general, they’re emboldened by this."
He said officers are being held back by politicians who prefer soft-on-crime experiments and non-police responses that do not work.
"They're being restrained by politicians, people that are trying soft on crime, people that're trying to send somebody other than a police officer to take care of issues, and it's not working."
Asked who actually wants enforcement, Nagel did not hesitate. “The people do,” he said. “They’re tired of it.”
His prescription is not another task-force slogan factory or a fresh pile of grant money for advocacy groups. He wants the laws already on the books used without apology.
"We don't need to pass any more laws. 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."
And he warned what happens if leaders keep choosing the other path.
"We need enforcement, we need arrests, and we need incarceration. Otherwise, this is going to continue to spiral."
Nagel has also accused Democrats, including Moriarty, of keeping their “heads in the sand,” and he has called for a serious gang task force backed by real prosecution and jail time, not press-release language after the shell casings are already on the ground.
While families in Eden Prairie and Bloomington deal with shootings and neighborhood gunfire, Walz has proposed a $10 million emergency relief package for small businesses affected by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Statewide leaders have time and money for that fight. Nagel’s question is why the same urgency is missing when Somali gang crews terrorize Minnesota suburbs.
Voters do not need another lecture about feelings. They need prosecutors who charge, sheriffs who speak plainly, and members of Congress who show up before the next hundred casings hit the street.
