WCCO investigates firearms offenders and efforts to prosecute them

MINNEAPOLIS — Our community has mobilized to support our first responders following two high-profile homicides earlier this year.

Three people died in Burnsville in February and Minneapolis police officer shot dead in May. The shooter in each case was a felon who was prohibited from possessing a firearm. So what is being done about this problem? And who is feeling the effects the most?

LaTanya Black is deeply saddened by the death of her daughter Nia.

“These are the things I hold on to because when your child or someone close to you passes away, all you have are memories,” Black said.

The professional make-up artist was just 23 years old when a criminal who should not have had a gun was killed. she took her own lifeshooting at the car she was riding in as it sped away after a fight in a St. Paul parking lot in 2020.

“Someone took her life. She had dreams, she had aspirations, she had dreams. She had all of that, you know, she still had the fight, the tenacity, the energy,” Black said.

The shooter has a criminal history involving firearms, including shooting another person in the same parking lot six years earlier.

His In cases like this, where a criminal possesses a firearm and uses it to cause harm, everyone from police to prosecutors work together to combat violent crime.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger says his office is prioritizing the most dangerous criminals.

“If someone is suspected of murders, shootings or carjackings, but the witnesses are reluctant, it’s difficult to get the case to be considered a homicide, a carjacking or even a robbery. Sometimes you have to take the easy way out that the prosecutors, both state and federal, will take. Felon in possession is a very simple, easy way out and an easy case to prove,” Luger said.

Over the past five years, federal prosecutors have charged more than 450 people with drug possession convictions.

“We can often get more time spent in prison or specific time spent in prison, and for the right type of defendant, we want to do that,” Luger said.

State cases make up the majority of felon drug possession charges, with district attorneys charging more than 8,000 people in Minnesota over the past five years. The state’s largest county, Hennepin, has the most, followed by Ramsey County. About 30 percent of defendants have been convicted so far.

“Criminals who own firearms have a history of not making responsible decisions,” said Megan Walsh, a law professor at the University of Minnesota.

Walsh runs a gun violence prevention law clinic where students defend state gun laws, many of which involve criminals in possession of guns.

“Public safety,” Walsh replied when asked what was at stake.

Nobody knows this better than Black.

“If I’m going to talk about Nia’s case, absolutely not. He should never have had a gun because he had a documented history of what he did with it. And it just escalated and became more and more, from someone being shot next to him, to him shooting someone, to him killing someone,” Black said.

This year, Luger’s office has secured several 9- and 10-year sentences for felons in possession of firearms. The maximum is 10 years. If convicted by the state, felons could face up to five years.

So how do criminals get their hands on guns? Many are obtained illegally on the streets, some are ghost guns, others straw purchasesThis happens when someone illegally buys a gun for someone who doesn’t have access to it.