Two people are federally charged with possession of machine guns after gun violence at high school graduations in the Twin Cities, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Minnesota announced Wednesday.

Hamza Abdirashid Said, 20, of Coon Rapids, was already charged in Hennepin County in a May 30 shooting at the University of Minnesota after the Wayzata High School graduation that injured two people.

Hamza Abdirashiid Said, left, and Amiir Mawlid Ali. (Courtesy of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office)

Separately, police arrested Amiir Mawlid Ali,18, of Circle Pines, after shots were fired after the Burnsville High School graduation on Friday. He is not charged in the shooting.

On June 3, Minneapolis police pulled over a vehicle and found a firearm under Ali’s seat, according to the charge. The gun had “a machine gun conversion device, also known as a switch,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“High school graduation ceremonies are a rite of passage,” Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joseph Thompson said in a statement. “A time for friends and family to come together to celebrate one of life’s major milestones. To bring machineguns and violence to such a ceremony is immoral and shameful.”

U of M shooting

At about 8 p.m. May 30, police responded to a shooting outside 3M Arena at Mariucci at the University of Minnesota. Two people who’d attended the Wayzata High School graduation ceremony had been shot.

Surveillance video showed “several males in a verbal altercation,” according to a law enforcement affidavit in the federal case against Said. One of them “withdrew a handgun and appeared to fire, causing bystanders to duck and run from the area.”

A 49-year-old man heard gunshots, and was shot “as he and his family attempted to escape the shooting,” the affidavit said.

The man was shot in the head, and sustained a fractured skull and brain bleed. He’s been released from the hospital.

Officers found a 19-year-old in a nearby vehicle who had a gunshot wound to his leg. He “was uncooperative when asked for information about the shooting,” the affidavit said.

Police took Said into custody in the area. He had several fresh cuts and injuries to his elbows and wrists. He did not provide a statement to law enforcement.

Said was seen on surveillance video and appeared to toss an item into a bush, the affidavit said.

Police found a 9mm semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity extended magazine and equipped with a switch. The switch allows “the firearm to be fired as a fully automatic weapon by a single function of the trigger,” the affidavit continued.

Burnsville HS shots fired

On June 3 about 3:45 p.m., Minneapolis officers pulled over a vehicle. Ali was the front seat passenger. An officer “knew from prior investigations that Ali was associated with multiple recent gang-related shootings,” said the affidavit in his case.

Officers asked if there were firearms or weapons in the vehicle. The occupants “all hesitated before replying, ‘No,’” the affidavit said. “Officers observed Ali repeatedly looking down at the passenger floorboard area and moving objects at his feet.”

The people in the vehicle said they were heading to the Edina High School graduation at the University of Minnesota. “Officers were aware of a shooting that occurred at the Wayzata High School graduation ceremony at the same location just four days earlier,” the affidavit said.

Police removed the people from the vehicle for officer safety, and an officer “easily observed” a firearm under the seat where Ali had been sitting. The 10 mm semiautomatic pistol was equipped with a switch and a loaded, 33-round extended magazine with a round in the chamber.

Related Articles

Feds: Minneapolis, Dakota County search warrants stemmed from 900 lbs of meth found in Burnsville storage unit

St. Paul police looking for hit-and-run driver who critically injured pedestrian

Federal appeals court hears arguments in Trump’s bid to erase hush money conviction

Eichorn argues federal prosecutors singling him out after child sex sting

Man charged with aiding an offender in teen’s killing at Northtown Mall has an open manslaughter case

Ali did not give a statement to law enforcement. He was released from the Hennepin County jail last Thursday.

The next day, he was among four people arrested after gunshots were fired after the Burnsville High School graduation ceremony. No one was injured in that case.

Two people were charged in Dakota County. A case against Ali, who was arrested on a warrant, was not presented to the Dakota County Attorney’s Office for charging consideration.

Both Said and Ali are charged with unlawful possession of a machinegun. They made their initial court appearances in federal court Tuesday and remained detained.

An attorney could not be reached for comment for either of the men.

The high school league is officially sponsoring boys volleyball for the first time this season, but Minnesota’s brand of volleyball is hardly for beginners. And the cream has risen to the top for the first state tournament.

That was on full display on Wednesday at the University of St. Thomas, where two club-fed powers — No. 2 seed Eastview and No. 3 seed Rogers — ran into one another in the semifinals.

After dropping the first set, Rogers ran the table to advance 22-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-19. But it was far from easy.

Between them, the teams had dropped only 20 sets all season. The Royals (27-1) haven’t lost a match since dropping their season opener to St. Michael-Albertville.

Senior Grant Anderson had game-highs of 20 kills and 45 total attacks, and junior teammate Owen Pierson added 13 kills and 30 total attacks as the Royals advanced to Thursday afternoon’s championship game against the winner of the evening match between Eden Prairie and Spring Lake Park.

It was an impressive display of power from the two outside hitters.

“One of my favorite things is just to hit the ball as hard as I can,” Pierson said.

Sometimes that’s hard to do in a tight match for fear of making an error. Not so for Pierson.

“I don’t really know how to explain it,” he said. “It’s just like I go up to jump and my mind’s just blank. All I have in there is to hit the ball hard and get a kill.”

Collin Nathan, a junior with a big left-hand swing, had six of his 15 kills in the first set to help put Eastview (28-4) up early. Runs were few and far between, and leads changed hands in each set.

“Games like those, it’s so hard to build momentum for yourself, so it’s all about keeping a level head and, when they get going, try to find ways to bring them back down to normalcy,” Nathan said. “I think they did a little bit better job of just staying consistent — hyped up, energized and just being on the attack. We were kind of on the defense a little bit.”

The Lightning will play the loser of the evening match on Thursday for third place.

“Obviously, it stings to lose and not go to the championship game,” Eastview outside hitter Owen Kunisaki said. “There wasn’t anyone on our team that wasn’t trying his best; they just executed a little better than we did today.”

Related Articles

State baseball: Winston Wisely fires 1-hitter, Mahtomedi advances in 3A

State baseball: Hutchinson rallies past Totino-Grace in 3A quarters

State golf tournament: Cretin-Derham Hall’s Udovich, Forest Lake’s Leonhart lead after Day 1

State track and field: Two Rivers’ Taurinskas, Math and Science Academy’s Lewis win jump titles

State boys lacrosse: East Ridge stuns Benilde in quarters, Stillwater, Lakeville North advance

The White House recently issued an executive order titled “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.”

Claiming that local leaders “demonize” law enforcement and shackle it with “political handcuffs,” the order directs resources toward expanded police training, higher pay and increased prison security and capacity. It also instructs the attorney general, secretary of Defense, and secretary of Homeland Security to “increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.”

While this may sound reasonable, extending military equipment and tactics to civilian policing may do more harm than good. Most critically, it would further blur the line between police and military — two institutions designed for fundamentally different purposes.

Since the nation’s founding, laws have aimed to separate the roles of police and military. The police are civilian peacekeepers. They are expected to protect the rights of all individuals they encounter — victims and suspects alike — and to use force only as a last resort.

The military, in contrast, is trained for war: to engage and destroy enemies. Proactive, often violent engagement with enemy combatants is part of the job.

I’ve written elsewhere about how this separation has eroded over time, largely because of U.S. foreign policy efforts such as the war on drugs and the war on terror. The tools and tactics developed for campaigns abroad inevitably find their way home. What begins with foreign targets ends up being applied domestically — turning American citizens into targets. These “ enemies” are often vaguely defined or not identifiable at all.

Consequently, local police have been recast as front-line warriors. Given this shift, they have adopted the tools and strategies of war.

It is not difficult to find clear examples. Consider the development of Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT, teams. Originating in the Los Angeles Police Department, SWAT units were modeled after elite military units used in Vietnam. By 1982, roughly 60% of U.S. police departments had SWAT teams. Just a decade later, nearly 90% did, with an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 SWAT deployments annually. Many have resulted in botched raids, injury or death to civilians and officers, and the destruction of property.

It’s not just tactics — it’s gear too. In 1981, Congress passed the Military Cooperation With Law Enforcement Act, allowing the Department of Defense to share intelligence with and advise local police. It also permitted the transfer of military equipment to local agencies to enforce drug, customs and immigration laws. The Pentagon approved roughly 10,000 requests within three years.

In 1990, Congress expanded these efforts with the 1208 Program, later replaced in 1997 by the 1033 Program. This program continues to funnel military-grade equipment to local agencies. Thousands of departments have received items ranging from armored vehicles to assault rifles to bayonets.

A critical flaw in the 1033 Program is its “ use it or lose it” provision: Agencies must use the equipment or return it. This creates a dangerous incentive to deploy military-grade gear even when unnecessary.

Oversight is minimal. Take the use of cell-site simulators, or “ Stingrays,” which mimic cell towers to extract identifying data from nearby phones. Initially used by the military to track foreign terrorists, the devices are now used by local law enforcement to monitor domestic suspects. These tools don’t just collect data from suspects — they sweep up information from anyone in the vicinity, generating obvious concerns regarding the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.

Worse, local agencies often sign nondisclosure agreements with federal agencies, shielding their use of this technology from public scrutiny. As a result, there’s little transparency regarding how these devices are deployed — or against whom.

Beyond tactics and technology, military influence has also shaped police culture. Officers now routinely describe their beats as “battlefields.” Many departments promote the “warrior mindset,” teaching officers to view themselves as combatants rather than community servants.

We all want safe communities. But this executive order is not the path to achieving them. Instead, it promises more of the same: continued erosion of the civilian character of policing and a steady march toward militarized law enforcement.

Abigail R. Hall, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland and an associate professor of economics at the University of Tampa, is a co-author of “How to Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite.”

Israelis, diaspora Jewry and friends of Israel everywhere need to understand that the way Israel is fighting the war in the Gaza Strip today is laying the groundwork for a fundamental recasting of how Israel and Jews will be seen the world over.

It won’t be good. Police cars and private security at synagogues and Jewish institutions will increasingly become the norm; Israel, instead of being seen by Jews as a safe haven from antisemitism, will be seen as a new engine generating it; sane Israelis will line up to immigrate to Australia and America rather than beckon their fellow Jews to come Israel’s way. That dystopian future is not here yet, but if you don’t see its outlines gathering, you are deluding yourself.

Fortunately, more and more retired and reserve duty Israeli air force pilots, as well as retired army and security officers, are seeing this gathering storm and declaring they will not be silent or complicit in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ugly, nihilistic policy in Gaza. They have begun to urge Jews in America and elsewhere to speak up — SOS: Save Our Ship — before the widening moral stain of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza becomes irreversible.

The back story

First, the back story: Israel months ago destroyed Hamas as an existential military threat. Given that, the Netanyahu government should be telling the Trump administration and Arab mediators that it’s ready to withdraw from Gaza in a phased manner and be replaced by an international/Arab/Palestinian Authority peacekeeping force — provided that the Hamas leadership agrees to return all remaining living and dead hostages and leave the strip.

If instead, though, Israel goes ahead with Netanyahu’s vow to perpetuate this war indefinitely — to try to achieve “total victory” over every last Hamasnik, along with the far right’s fantasy of ridding Gaza of Palestinians and resettling it with Israelis — Jews worldwide better prepare themselves, their children and their grandchildren for a reality they’ve never known: to be Jewish in a world where the Jewish state is a pariah state — a source of shame, not of pride.

Because one day, foreign photographers and reporters will be allowed to go into Gaza unescorted by the Israeli military. And when they do, and the full horror of the destruction there becomes clear to all, the backlash against Israel and Jews everywhere could be profound.

Hamas has always been a cancer

Do not confuse my warning to Israel for a shred of understanding for what Hamas did on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas invited the Israeli response with its own mass killings of Israeli parents in front of their children, children in front of their parents, by kidnapping grandmothers and murdering kidnapped children. What society in the world would not see its heart grow cold by such brutality? Hamas deserves to be eliminated; Hamas is and always has been a cancer on the Palestinian people, let alone Israelis.

But as a Jew who believes in the right of the Jewish people to live in a secure state in their biblical homeland — alongside a secure Palestinian state — I am focused right now on my own tribe. And if my own tribe does not resist this Israeli government’s utter indifference to the number of civilians being killed in Gaza today — as well its attempt to tilt Israel into authoritarianism at home by moving to sack its independent attorney general — Jews everywhere will pay dearly.

Voices of Israeli air force pilots

Don’t just take that warning from me. Last week two respected former Israeli air force pilots, Brig. Gen. Asaf Agmon and Col. Uri Arad (who was a prisoner of war in Egypt during the October 1973 war), published an open letter in Hebrew in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, addressed to their colleagues still serving in the air force. Both men are members of Forum 555 Patriots, an impressive group of around 1,700 Israeli air force pilots, some retired and some still serving as reservists, which originally formed to resist Netanyahu’s efforts to undermine Israeli democracy with a judicial coup.

A Forum 555 leader, retired Israeli air force helicopter pilot Guy Poran, sent me Agmon and Arad’s letter to see if I could get it published as a Times Opinion guest essay. I told them I wanted to publish an excerpt myself. They wrote:

“We do not seek to downplay the monstrous nature of the massacre committed by Hamas terrorists on that cursed Saturday. We believe the war was fully justified. …

“However, as the war in Gaza dragged on, it became clear that it was losing its strategic and security purposes and instead served primarily the political and personal interests of the government. It thus became an unmistakably immoral war, and increasingly appeared to be a war of revenge. …

“The Air Force has become a tool for those, in government and even in the military, who claim that there are no innocent people in Gaza. … Recently, a member of the Knesset even boasted that one of the government’s achievements is the ability to kill 100 people a day in Gaza without anyone being shocked.

“In response to such statements, we say: As horrific as the Oct. 7 massacre was, it does not justify complete disregard for moral considerations or the disproportionate use of deadly force. We do not want to become like the worst of our enemies.

“The climax came on the night of March 18, with the resumption of war after the Israeli government knowingly chose to violate the agreement for the return of hostages. In a deadly airstrike intended to kill several Hamas commanders (reports vary on whether there were dozens or fewer), a new record was set. The munitions dropped by Air Force pilots on the target killed approximately 300 people, including many children. No satisfactory explanation has been given so far for the horrifying outcome of the attack.

“Since then, the Air Force has continued its relentless strikes on Gaza. … Entire buildings with children, women, and civilians are bombed — ostensibly to eliminate terrorists or destroy terror infrastructure. Even if some targets are legitimate, the disproportionate harm to uninvolved civilians cannot be denied. …

“This is a moment of reckoning. It is not too late. We call on our fellow active duty pilots: Do not continue to avoid asking questions. … Because you are the ones who will have to bear the moral consequences of your actions for the rest of your lives. You will have to face your children and grandchildren and explain how such unimaginable destruction occurred in Gaza, how so many innocent children perished by the deadly killing machine you piloted.”

And more …

Just a few hours after I got the letter, Nimrod Novik, a senior foreign policy adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, sent me another open letter, dated June 8. This one was from Commanders for Israel’s Security, urging Jewish diaspora voices to speak up against the madness in Gaza before they too are consumed by it. It read, in part:

“As Commanders for Israel’s Security, a movement of over 550 retired senior officials from Israel’s defense, security and diplomatic services, our lifelong mission has been to secure the future of Israel as the strong, democratic home of the Jewish people. … Recent events have led to passionate and sometimes painful debates within Jewish communities worldwide, particularly regarding the situation in Gaza. Many in the diaspora have voiced concerns publicly. Consequently, some have faced harsh criticism. Accused of weakening Israel or betraying their connection to the Jewish state, they are told that those who live abroad or do not serve in the I.D.F. must keep silent. We categorically reject the notion that Jews in the diaspora must remain silent on matters concerning Israel. … To those who fear that public criticism undermines Israel, we say that open, honest dialogue only reinforces our democracy and our security.”

First, Amen …

I have three reactions to these open letters:

First, Amen.

Second, this is what being pro-Israel really sounds like.

Third, it is time for a similar movement calling out Hamas’ vile excesses, led by those who support Palestinian statehood and a peaceful resolution in Gaza.

No one should accept Hamas prolonging this war to keep itself in power. Nothing would do more to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire than to be denounced across the world, on college campuses and in high-profile demonstrations from those who have been giving this hate-driven organization a free pass. This is what being pro-Palestinian really sounds like.

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.