A Minneapolis City Council member said he was carjacked on the city’s south side Monday night.
Jamal Osman said the carjacking occurred near Portland Avenue and Lake Street around 8 p.m. The suspects allegedly threatened him with mace.
“I’m home now in Phillips West with my family, and I want to assure neighbors that I’m okay,” Osman said. “This incident is another reminder of the work ahead to keep all of our communities safe.”
Osman represents Ward 6, of which Portland and Lake sit right on the border. He said police “responded quickly to the incident” and thanked both Chief Brian O’Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey for checking on him after the carjacking.
“I spoke with Council Member Osman last night to offer my support, and I’m grateful he’s okay,” Frey said in a statement. “While crime might be trending down, incidents like this are a reminder that we still have a lot of work left to do to improve public safety. I look forward to working with Council Member Osman to that end.”
According to Osman, the suspects are minors who carried out other carjackings earlier in the evening. O’Hara says two children, ages 15 and 16, were arrested in connection with the carjackings.
“My heart goes out to them,” Osman said of the other victims. “No one should have to experience this kind of trauma in our city.”
O’Hara says the first in the string of carjackings occurred around 2 p.m. Monday, when a Subaru Outback was stolen from the 1600 block of First Avenue South. Over the next few hours, police say the suspects used the Subaru Outback to commit multiple robberies and attempted carjackings across the city.
One victim told police she had been putting her daughter in the car when the suspect got in and attempted to drive away, according to O’Hara. She jumped on her daughter while the suspect punched her in the face and head before jumping out of the vehicle.
A short time later, police say the suspects carjacked a Subaru Legacy, threatening the victim and smashing his phone before stealing it. Investigators believe those suspects then went on to carjack Osman next.
Minutes after Osman had been carjacked, O’Hara says officers spotted his vehicle and the stolen Subaru Legacy near Lake Street and Pillsbury Avenue. Police attempted to stop them, but both vehicles fled, striking several other cars in the process.
The Subaru Legacy crashed into a fire hydrant and the two teen suspects were arrested after a short foot chase. A replica firearm was also recovered at the scene.
Osman’s vehicle was later recovered near Lyndale Place in north Minneapolis, according to O’Hara, and is being processed for evidence of the two suspects taken into custody. The police chief added that one of the juveniles was known to police and the other was not.
Two adults were also arrested overnight in connection with a separate armed carjacking at a gas station near the 2600 block of Penn Avenue North early Monday morning. O’Hara says the incidents are not believed to be connected.
“Whether it’s juveniles engaged in dangerous and reckless acts, or adults committing armed carjackings at gunpoint, these violent crimes have a serious impact on our residents and our larger community,” O’Hara said. “While the overall crime in Minneapolis has declined over the last few years, we continue to see a troubling number of violent incidents, and in particular incidents that involve juveniles, and that’s why the MPD is working hard to try and intervene and to hold offenders accountable.”
Christopher Johnson, who lives just up the block from the area where Osman was carjacked, said that people in the neighborhood are extremely careful about where and how they park their cars. He said that, unfortunately, break-ins have become an unwelcome expectation.
“It’s not surprising,” Johnson said. “City councilor or not, I think Minneapolis is a city where anybody can get hit.”
Duke Cano owns and operates Duke’s Cars and Towing on the Portland and Lake intersection. He said that they are frequently seeing victims of carjackings or break-ins coming in for help.
“It’s a little bit sad when you see a parent or a mom saying, ‘Oh, my car got stolen and my insurance is too expensive,’” Cano said.
According to city data, there have been 152 carjackings so far this year. Eighteen of those have occurred in Osman’s ward. Of the city’s 13 wards, only 5 (22), 8 (19) and 9 (34) have seen more.
Citywide, carjackings are down compared to last year at this time, along with nearly all violent crime.
Last year, O’Hara touted the work his department has been doing to reduce the number of carjackings.
“We initiated a robbery response protocol where we saturate areas as soon as we can once we noticed these problems . . . and then even when we do have robbery sprees, there’s fewer robberies and carjackings reported,” O’Hara said at the time. “We also now have juvenile investigators on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week . . . because there’s certain procedures and evidence collection issues that are different for juveniles. We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can at the time of the incident — whether it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, or 3 o’clock on a Monday afternoon — to ensure that we’re doing everything possible to build these cases as quickly as quickly as we can.”
Voters first chose Osman to represent Ward 6 in a special election in 2020. He won reelection in 2021, 2023 and just last week.
