State of Minnesota, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A20-0328

State of Minnesota,
Appellant,

vs.

Abdilahi Muse Ibrahim,
Respondent.

Filed August 31, 2020
Appeal dismissed
Bjorkman, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-19-8238

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Thad N. Tudor, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Michael J. Colich, Ellen A.C. Lavigne, Adrian S. Montez, Colich & Associates,
Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge; Bjorkman, Judge; and Frisch,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
BJORKMAN, Judge
In this pretrial appeal, appellant-state argues that the erroneous exclusion of
evidence linking r espondent’s brother to a prior gang-related s hooting significantly

2
reduced the likelihood that the state can successfully prosecute respondent for murder.
Because the state has not established that the excluded evidence will have a critical impact
on its ability to prosecute the case, we dismiss the appeal.
FACTS
Two shootings occurred in Minneapolis on the evening of March 1, 2019. The first
took place at about 9:17 p.m. at the Karmel Mall ; the second occurred at the Red Sea Bar
and Restaurant (Red Sea) just before midnight. Appellant State of Minnesota alleges that
respondent Abdilahi Muse Ibrahim participated in the second shooting.
Both shootings involved suspected gang members and took place within five miles
of each other. The victim of the first shooting told the police that he was “targeted by
members of the 1627 Boys Street Gang, because some people believed that he was a
member of the Somali Outlaw[s] gang.” That victim was taken to a Minneapolis hospital.
Hospital surveillance footage from 9:50 to 10:30 p.m. shows a group of approximately 20
young men of Somali descent arriving in five different vehicles and congregating outside
the hospital.
Two members of the group , later identified as Ibrahim and his co-defendant Omar
Hassan, are seen talking near the hospital. A Minneapolis police officer stationed at the
hospital overheard Hassan say that the shooting victim is his cousin. And the video shows
Hassan “visibly crying at times .” At 10:32 p.m., Hassan and Ibrahim left the hospital
together in a light-colored Chevrolet sedan.
The second shooting occurred s hortly after a Toyota Camry contain ing six
individuals parked behind the Red Sea . Surveillance footage shows a light er colored

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Chevrolet sedan following the Camry. Two people exited the Camry and walked toward
the restaurant. Then two men got out of the Chevrolet. They approached the Camry and
opened fire, shooting 26 rounds into the vehicle. The shots killed one of its occupants and
injured two others. Witnesses at the scene could not identify the shooters, and police did
not find any weapons. But police recovered 26 discharged cartridge casings. The casings
revealed that each shooter had fired 13 times; one from a .40 caliber handgun and the other
from a 9mm handgun.
Police investigators identified Ibrahim and Hassan as the shoo ting suspects
primarily through examination of surveillance footage from the hospital and the crime
scene. These recordings show a light-colored Chevrolet sedan with a “distinctive triangle
shaped snow cover on the passenger side of the hood,” parked outside the hospital and later
behind the Red Sea. The two men captured on the hospital footage “appeared to be dressed
in an identical manner” as the men seen in the Red Sea footage. From the footage, police
described Ibrahim as a “black male with a light complexion, wearing a darker colored parka
style jacket, with his [fur -lined] hood up,” and “dark pants with white shoes that had a
distinctive dark stripe near the sole.” And police described Hassan as “a black male with
a light complexion,” “wearing a da rker jacket (not a parka) with the hood up,” “dark
colored shoes with a loop on the back portion of the heel,” “dark sweatpants that rested just
above his ankles,” and “white or light colored socks.” Hassan’s cell phone records place
him at the hospital while the group of young men congregated there and at the Red Sea at
the time of the shooting.

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The ballistics investigation revealed that the .40 caliber casings found at the Red
Sea have “matching features” to casings found at a nother “Somali related shooting” that
had occurred two weeks earlier, on February 19. The victim of the February 19 shooting
(Witness 1) identified Ibrahim’s brother as the shooter and Ahmed Rashad Ahmed as the
driver. The two men abandoned their vehicle at the scene . Police found an apartment
rental agreement bearing Ibrahim’s name inside the vehicle. And they located a soda bottle
with a DNA profile that ruled out over 99.99% of the general population, but not Ibrahim’s
brother or Ahmed.
A grand jury indicted Ibrahim on 12 counts of intentional and unintentional murder
for the Red Sea shooting, including two counts of first -degree murder (premeditated and
murder committed for the benefit of a gang), two counts of second -degree murder
(intentional and for the benefit of a gang), two counts of attempted first-degree murder for
the benefit of a gang, two counts of attempted first-degree premeditated murder, two counts
of attempted second-degree murder for the benefit of a gang, and two counts of attempted
second-degree murder.
The state provided notice of and moved pretrial to admit Spreigl evidence1 related
to the February 19 shooting, asserting:
On February 19, 2019, Defendant Ibrahim’s brother,
Farhan Ibrahim, shot and paralyzed an identified male,
hereinafter referred to as “Witness 1.” Witness 1 is personally
familiar with Defendant Ibrahim, and positively identified his

1 Evidence of other crimes or bad acts, also known as Spreigl evidence, may be admissible
when offered for other purposes, such as to prove motive, opportunity, intent, preparation,
plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. Minn. R. Evid. 404(b) ; see
State v. Spreigl, 139 N.W.2d 167, 169 (Minn. 1965).

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brother, Farhan, as the person who shot him. Forensic analysis
has shown that the same .40 caliber handgun used by Farhan in
this February 19, 2019 shooting was used to commit the March
1, 2019 murder that Defendants Abdilahi Ibrahim and Omar
Hassan are accused of committing.

Further, the vehicle that Farhan shot from crashed into
a nearby snow bank immediately after shooting Witness 1.
Inside the vehicle was a rental agreement in the name of
Defendant Abdilahi Ibrahim. The driver of this vehicle at the
time of the shooting has also been positively identified. He
was Ahmed Rashad Ahmed, a well -known member of the
Somali Outlaws criminal street gang. Defendant Omar Hassan
has a documented history of associating with Ahmed and both
Ibrahim brothers that goes back to 2015.

The state’s motion indicates that “Witness 1 will also testify to the gang related motive
behind these shootings, and identify individuals as members of both the Somali Outlaws
and the 1627 Boys, or ‘Six Rings,’ criminal street gangs.” Following a hearing, the district
court denied the motion, in part, stating:
Evidence that the discharged cartridge casings (DCCs)
from t his incident match the DCCs from a prior shooting
involving the same gang to show Defendant Ibrahim’s access
to the firearm is GRANTED. Further specifics of the prior
shooting including the identity of the alleged shooter, his
relationship to either Defendant, or the injury sustained by that
victim are irrelevant and inadmissible.

The state seeks pretrial review of this ruling.2
D E C I S I O N
To appeal a pretrial order, “the state must clearly and unequivocally show both that
the [district] court’s order will have a critical impact on the state’s ability to prosecute the

2 On appeal, the state no longer contends that the excluded evidence is admissible under
Spreigl.

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defendant successfully and that the order constituted error.” State v. Zanter, 535 N.W.2d
624, 630 (Minn. 1995) (quotation omitted) ; see Minn. R. Crim. P. 28.04, subd. 2 (2)(b)
(requiring state to notify appellate court “how the district court’s alleged error, unless
reversed, will have a critical impact on the outcome of the trial”). Because critical impact
is a threshold issue , appellate courts “ will not review a pretrial order absent such a
showing.” State v. Osorio, 891 N.W.2d 620, 627 (Minn. 2017).
Critical impact is shown when suppression of the evidence “completely destroys the
state’s case” or “when excluding the evidence significantly reduces the likelihood of a
successful prosecution.” State v. McLeod, 705 N.W.2d 776, 784 (Minn. 2005) (quotation
omitted). The showing “depends in large part on the nature of the state’s evidence against
the accused,” Zanter, 535 N.W.2d at 630, and requires examination of “all of the state’s
admissible evidence as a whole ,” McLeod, 705 N.W.2d at 785. In evaluating critical
impact, we examine
the inherent qualities of the suppressed evidence itself, its
relevance and probative force, its chronological proximity to
the alleged crime, its effect in filling gaps in the evidence
viewed as a whole, its quality as a perspective of events
different than those otherwise available, its clarity and amount
of detail and its origin.

In re Welfare of L.E.P. , 594 N.W.2d 163, 168 (Minn. 1999) (citation omitted) . Excluded
evidence that “is particularly unique in nature and quality is more likely to meet the critical
impact test.” Id.
The state contends that the suppres sion order critically impacts its ability to
prosecute Ibrahim because it excludes evidence connecting him to the murder weapon.

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According to the state, the excluded evidence is necessary to establish that Ibrahim (1) is a
member of the Somali Outlaws gan g and committed the Red Sea shooting to benefit that
gang, and (2) possessed the gun used in the Red Sea shooting because his brother used it
during the February 19 shooting. Indirect evidence of identity may be critical to a trial
outcome because the loss of one link in a chain of circumstantial evidence “may prevent
the state from meeting its evidentiary burden.” McLeod, 705 N.W.2d at 784-85 (quotation
omitted). But we are not persuaded that exclusion of the evidence in question significantly
reduces the likelihood the state will meet its burden of proof.
We first examine the state’s admissible evidence as a whole. While the district court
has not yet determined the admissibility of some of the evidence, and we are not certain
the state identified the whole of the evidence, the record indicates that Ibrahim is one of
the shooters. The state will offer testimony from a police sergeant who received the
surveillance footage from the hospital and crime scene and will ex plain “why this
comparison caused her to focus on these defendants.” Her testimony will likely cover the
unique and nearly identical appearances of Ibrahim and Hassan as shown in the hospital
and Red Sea surveillance footage. The footage includes the light-colored Chevrolet sedan
that Ibrahim and Hassan entered at the hospital and exited at the crime scene, which,
according to the sergeant, had a unique and remarkable snow pattern on its hood that is
visible in both surveillance videos. Hassan’s cell pho ne records indicate he was at the
hospital and then the Red Sea at the relevant times. The fact Hassan’s cousin was the
victim in the first March 1 shooting provides evidence that Ibrahim had a motive to join
Hassan in retaliating against rival gang members.

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The record also contains evidence of Ibrahim’s gang affiliation and that the Red Sea
shooting was gang -related. Indeed, the suppression order expressly permits the state to
offer evidence that one of the guns involved in the Red Sea shooting was use d in “a prior
shooting involving the same gang.” The state intends to present testimony of a police
officer who is an expert in gang-related intelligence, worked in the area where the shootings
occurred, and is familiar with local gangs. He will testify that Ibrahim and Hassan are
members of the Somali Outlaws. And the officer will opine that the Somali Outlaws and
1627 Boys are rivals and meet the statutory definition of gangs. The fact that the two
shootings occurred hours apart on March 1 involving members of these rival gangs and the
intervening gathering of 20 young males at the hospital also suggests that Ibrahim
committed the Red Sea shootings to benefit a gang.
Admittedly, the excluded evidence 3 that Ibrahim’s brother was involved in the
February 19 shooting has probative value. It links Ibrahim to one of the weapons used in
the Red Sea shooting. But we are not convinced that the quality of this evidence is so
unique and differs from other evidence that its exclusion has critical impact. Ibrahim’s
relationship to his brother suggests that they could have occasional contact . But the
excluded evidence does not show that the Ibrahim brothers actually had any contact with
each other between February 19 and March 1 , during which the gun could have been

3 The parties do not agree on the scope of the suppression order. Ibrahim contends that
the order permits evidence of Ibrahim’s apartment rental agre ement and the soda bottle
found in the vehicle left at the scene of the February 19 shooting. The state disagrees. We
do not resolve this issue because it is not necessary to our analysis . But we do note that
the hearing transcript and order leave open the possibility that other evidence from the
February 19 shooting may be admitted at trial.

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transferred. The state concedes that Ibrahim ’s brother “fled the state of Minnesota after
the 2/19/19 shooting and was not present during the March 1, 2019 murder.” And the state
is otherwise able to link Ibrahim to the murder weapon by virtue of the fact he is a member
of the gang responsible for both the February 19 and Red Sea shootings.
In sum, we are not persuaded that the excluded evidence will significantly reduce
the likelihood that the state will successfully prose cute Ibrahim for the Red Sea murder.
See State v. Schnorr, 403 N.W.2d 719, 7 20 (Minn. App. 1987) ( concluding pretrial
suppression of controlled substance obtained during unlawful search of driver did not have
a critical impact because the state had other lawfully obtained evidence that was sufficient
to support charges); State v. Hendrickson , 395 N.W.2d 458, 462 (Minn. App. 1986)
(concluding pretrial suppression of defendant’s tape-recorded statement did not have
critical impact when the state failed to show how suppressed evidence would affect trial
and an eyewitness was available to testify to what defendant said in the recording and could
use it to refresh his recollection). Because “[c]ritical impact is a threshold issue,” the state’s
failure to make this showing requires dismissal of the state’s appeal. McLeod, 705 N.W.2d
at 784.
By dismissing this appeal, we offer no comment on the merits of the district court’s
suppression ruling. But we observe that courts may revisit pretrial rulings if appropriate at
trial. See State v. Schmieg , 344 N.W.2d 425, 427 (Minn. App. 1984) ( stating a district
court may reconsider a pretrial suppression ruling at trial upon proper application of the
parties).
Appeal dismissed.