Last year, the Minneapolis metro area had a rash of gun incidents associated with suburban high school graduation ceremonies. One of the would-be perpetrators was convicted in a federal jury trial yesterday of machine gun possession.
Amiir Mawlid Ali, now age 19, was convicted on a felony gun charge after a three-day jury trial held at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice put out a press release,
Jury Convicts Minnesota Man of Illegally Possessing Machine Gun
You may recall the incident from last June,
[Ali] was arrested after officers found a machine gun in his possession during a routine traffic stop as he was on the way to a high school graduation. Mr. Ali tried to flee the scene during the traffic stop but officers apprehended him before he could get away. The firearm was equipped with a machine gun conversion device and an extended magazine, which was loaded with over 30 rounds of ammunition.
That’s 33 to be exact, including one in the chamber. Ali could face up to ten years in prison on the charge. This incident and an unrelated one involving a Wayzata High School graduation shooting received much publicity at the time.
In the Wayzata incident, Hamza Abdirashiid Said, then aged 20, was charged with a federal gun crime. His case is still in process.
A third incident occurred that same month outside of the Burnsville High School graduation ceremony. Fox-9 TV reported at the time,
Abdulahi Jama Ali, 18, of Shakopee, and Abdikani Mukhtar Abdiwahab, 18, of Bloomington, are charged in connection with the incident. Ali is charged with two counts of drive-by shooting and second-degree assault.
Those were state charges. KSTP-5 (ABC) reports that Amiir Ali was one of four 18-year-olds arrested at the scene in Burnsville, having already been released from Hennepin County custody.
In the earlier Edina case, according to the original police complaint, Amiir and two confederates were en route to the Mariucci ice hockey arena on the campus of the University of Minnesota for the Edina High School graduation ceremony when pulled over by Minneapolis city cops. The three did not make it to the graduation site, the location of the Wayzata HS double shooting a few days prior.
Ali was caught with the 10 mm pistol described above during the traffic stop.
Both Edina HS and Wayzata HS have moved their 2026 graduation ceremonies to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, home of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.
Ali’s sentencing will be scheduled at a later date. In the meantime, he remains in federal custody.
[Note: an earlier version of this post appeared at AmericanExperiment.Org.]
