00:00The FBI just took down one of Minneapolis's most dangerous drug mobs.
00:04Since the 1990s, this gang has conspired to deliver deadly narcotics to our neighborhoods
00:09and ushered in violence to aid in their efforts to claim control over their so-called territory.
00:15And the amount of fentanyl they pulled off those streets
00:17is the kind of number that should make every American stop and pay attention.
00:22Investigation shows that combined, those charged were responsible for the distribution of enough fentanyl
00:29for more than three and a half million lethal doses in the last seven months.
00:34But what finally forced the feds to move was a single day of bloodshed so brutal, so public,
00:41that ignoring it was no longer an option.
00:43We are following a developing story this morning as police remain on the scene
00:47of a mass shooting at a homeless encampment in Minneapolis.
00:51Keep in mind, this has been another busy day for Minneapolis police
00:54with this shooting happening just 12 hours.
00:55after another shooting just blocks away where five other people were hurt.
01:00Now, with arrests made and Trump's death penalty
01:03pushed targeting exactly this kind of operation,
01:06people are asking,
01:07is this finally the end of the family mob
01:10or just the beginning of something much bigger?
01:16The FBI's Minneapolis field office posted a single, deliberately vague message to social media
01:22before the sun came up on February 25th, 2026.
01:26By the time interim special agent in charge, Rick Evanchek,
01:29stood at that afternoon's press conference, 11 people were already in custody.
01:33So this was hundreds of law enforcement officers in a well-coordinated effort that,
01:40you know, luckily today and thankfully today everyone was safe and we're very proud of that.
01:46But I would venture to say one of the largest law enforcement operations this city has seen.
01:50And the numbers back that up.
01:51The FBI brought in four additional SWAT teams from outside Minnesota specifically for this operation.
01:58What they pulled out of those locations,
02:0014 firearms, 6.5 kilograms of fentanyl,
02:042 kilograms of cocaine,
02:06nearly 800 grams of methamphetamine,
02:08200 grams of crack cocaine,
02:105 vehicles,
02:12close to $100,000 in cash.
02:14U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen made one thing absolutely clear.
02:18These individuals are associated with a gang known as the family mob.
02:22They include individuals with long histories of drug and violent crimes, including murder.
02:27And then he addressed critics who had been questioning whether his office was understaffed
02:32following a wave of recent prosecutor departures.
02:34Our office continues to grow.
02:36And if you're a criminal in the city of Minneapolis or in the state of Minnesota,
02:40I recommend that you don't commit crimes on the assumption that
02:44the U.S. Attorney's Office doesn't have enough lawyers.
02:46You've got enough to get you off.
02:48What investigators found inside that operation
02:51was worse than most people realized.
02:53The family mob had set up what they called The Wall,
02:56a specific stretch near Lake Street and Chicago Avenue
03:00that functioned as their permanent distribution point.
03:02And the product itself was designed to deceive.
03:05Fentanyl pressed into fake pills,
03:07made to look identical to legitimate M30 oxycodone tablets.
03:11The distribution of illegal narcotics and the spread of violence
03:15in our communities will not be tolerated.
03:18Our communities should know that the FBI
03:20will continue to partner with exceptional agencies.
03:24In 2025, our task force removed 221 pounds of methamphetamine,
03:3040 pounds of cocaine,
03:32and 26 pounds of fentanyl from the Hennepin County Street.
03:35To understand the scale of what that corner was doing
03:39to the surrounding community,
03:40in 2024 alone,
03:42Hennepin County recorded 264 deaths
03:45from opioid-related overdoses.
03:48Fentanyl was involved in over 91% of them.
03:51The family mob wasn't operating in a vacuum.
03:54They were directly feeding a crisis
03:56that was already killing hundreds of people a year,
03:59one fake pill at a time.
04:04We have tried to clear this encampment on multiple occasions.
04:09We were met with resistance by the property owner.
04:12It made it very difficult,
04:14both from a practical as well as a legal perspective.
04:17And so ultimately,
04:17we moved forward with a public health nuisance order.
04:21None of this happens without September 15th, 2025.
04:25That Monday, Minneapolis erupted,
04:28not once, but twice,
04:30on the same corridor within 12 hours.
04:34This particular ramp
04:36and this immediate area
04:38has been notable for crime and violence recently.
04:42On August 18th,
04:43a woman was shot on the greenway behind me.
04:47On August 22nd,
04:48two men were shot near Lake Street and Stevens Avenue.
04:51Just after 11 in the morning,
04:53five people were shot near East Lake Street
04:56and Stevens Avenue.
04:57One victim was rushed to Hennepin County Medical Center
05:00with gunshot wounds to the head and neck.
05:02Then, at 10 p.m., that same night,
05:05same street, different block,
05:07gunfire tore through a homeless encampment.
05:09Eight more people shot.
05:10Responding officers found two victims
05:13already inside their tents,
05:14each with a bullet wound to the head.
05:16Thirty shell casings were collected from the scene.
05:19One woman, Jacinda Oak Grove, 30 years old,
05:22died in the hospital three days later.
05:24Thirteen total victims.
05:26Two dead.
05:27Two mass shootings.
05:28Twelve hours.
05:29This is tragic.
05:30It is horrible.
05:31It's unacceptable.
05:33And sadly, it's not surprising.
05:36These homeless encampments are not safe.
05:39The mayor of a major American city
05:41had reached a point
05:42where two mass shootings in half a day
05:44on the same street felt predictable.
05:46That's not a crime problem.
05:48That's a governance failure
05:49that had been building for years.
05:50As we've said before,
05:53and we will say a hundred times over,
05:55encampments are not safe.
05:57They are not safe for the people living at the encampment,
06:02for the people going to the encampment
06:04to buy and or sell drugs.
06:06They are not safe for the surrounding community.
06:09Chief Brian O'Hara confirmed
06:11what investigators were already seeing.
06:13The encampment shooting
06:14was rooted in a drug territory dispute.
06:17An out-of-state dealer from Illinois
06:18named Tryvon Leonard had come to Minneapolis
06:21to sell on ground
06:22the family mob already controlled.
06:24When he showed up at that encampment,
06:26it was a confrontation waiting to happen.
06:28It's been a lot of violence lately,
06:30and we just want our community to know
06:32that we are not going to give up
06:33and that we will continue to fight
06:36so that every person in this city can be safe.
06:40Leonard was later arrested,
06:41charged,
06:42and ultimately pleaded guilty
06:43to first-degree riot on November 21st, 2025.
06:47He was sentenced to 74 months in December,
06:50but that arrest only answered the encampment shooting,
06:54the family mob connection.
06:55That was still wide open.
06:57That's when O'Hara's department
06:58brought what they knew to the FBI.
07:00The MPD shared this intelligence
07:02with our federal partners at the FBI
07:05and leading a joint investigation
07:08that included the Minneapolis Police Department,
07:12FBI, DEA,
07:13and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office.
07:16The investigation expanded exponentially
07:19and culminated in today's coordinated operation.
07:24Some people are now asking
07:26whether it should have taken a double mass shooting
07:28on the same day
07:29for that federal response to materialize.
07:32The family mob had been working those streets openly for years.
07:35The answer to that question
07:36depends on who you think was responsible
07:39for letting it go that long.
07:42We've had a number of shootings
07:44in the last 28 days,
07:46not far from where we are.
07:48So, yes, we believe this situation
07:51is just contributing to the overall crime problem.
07:54And the easiest thing to do
07:56is just to shut it down and clean this up.
07:58The gang called themselves the family mob.
08:00And for anyone living on the East Lake Street corridor
08:03in South Minneapolis,
08:04that name meant one thing.
08:06You don't operate here without their permission.
08:08Since the 1990s,
08:10this gang has conspired
08:11to deliver deadly narcotics to our neighborhoods
08:13and ushered in violence to aid in their efforts
08:16to claim control over their so-called territory.
08:19The family mob ran a de facto open-air drug market
08:22near Lake Street and Park Avenue.
08:24Fentanyl, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine
08:27sold in the open
08:28with force used to push out anyone who tried to compete.
08:31In just seven months,
08:33the five federal defendants
08:34collectively moved more than seven kilograms of fentanyl.
08:37Investigation shows that combined,
08:41those charged were responsible
08:43for the distribution of enough fentanyl
08:45for more than three and a half million lethal doses
08:48in the last seven months.
08:50They include individuals with long histories
08:53of drug and violent crimes, including murder.
08:55Now meet the people charged.
08:57Silk Laman Davis, street name Good or Do Good,
09:0148 years old, Minneapolis,
09:03charged by indictment with possession
09:05with intent to distribute fentanyl and cocaine.
09:08Alexisus Jarman Mosby, street name Snake,
09:1244 years old, Bloomington,
09:14charged by indictment with distribution of fentanyl.
09:17Kyron Jamal Williams, street name Killer,
09:2043 years old, Minneapolis,
09:23charged by indictment with possession
09:24with intent to distribute fentanyl.
09:26Currently at large, Rashan Jamal Taggett,
09:30street name Dread or Lay Low,
09:3344 years old, Minneapolis,
09:35charged by complaint with conspiracy
09:37to distribute fentanyl.
09:38Seven others were arrested on related state charges.
09:41Their identities have not been released.
09:43Hennepin County Sheriff Dewan Awit gave some context
09:46on just how much product had been flowing through this area.
09:49In 2025, our teams were effective
09:53in confiscating 700 illegally possessed firearms.
09:57And a lot of those were connected with drugs.
10:00That number describes a parallel armed economy
10:03operating inside a city that spent years debating
10:06whether to defund its police force.
10:10July 16th, 2025,
10:13Trump signed the Halt Fentanyl Act,
10:15permanently classifying fentanyl-related substances
10:18as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act.
10:22With this bill, we are officially and permanently
10:24classifying all fentanyl-related substances
10:27as Schedule I narcotics,
10:31which is actually a very big deal,
10:32meaning anyone caught trafficking these illicit poisons
10:35will be punished with a mandatory 10-year minimum
10:39sentence in prison.
10:42December 15th, 2025,
10:44Trump signed an executive order
10:46designating illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,
10:50not a drug, a weapon.
10:53The order directed the Attorney General
10:54to immediately pursue sentencing enhancements
10:57and sentencing variances in fentanyl trafficking cases.
11:00You know, fentanyl is very bad when you mix it with certain ingredients,
11:05but it also is very important for medicine.
11:08That's why today I'm taking one more step to protect Americans
11:11from the scourge of deadly fentanyl flooding into our country.
11:16With this historic executive order I will sign today.
11:19The order stated it plainly.
11:22Illicit fentanyl is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic.
11:25Two milligrams constitutes a lethal dose.
11:29The family mob defendants collectively distributed enough fentanyl
11:32for 3.5 million of those lethal doses.
11:36On his first day back in office,
11:38Trump had also signed an executive order
11:40directing the Attorney General, Pam Bondi,
11:42to pursue the death penalty for all crimes
11:45of a severity demanding its use.
11:47The question being quietly examined right now
11:50is whether the deaths connected to the family mob's drug territory
11:53could form a legal bridge to that statute.
11:58So what do you think?
12:00Do these defendants deserve more than life in prison?
12:02Drop your thoughts in the comments below
12:04and if you want more stories
12:06where we don't look away from what's actually happening in these cities,
12:09click on any of the videos on your screen right now.
Comments