Plea deal on the table for Derrick Thompson in crash that killed five young Somali women

A plea deal is on the table for the man charged with killing five young women in a vicious car crash when he ran a red light at 95 mph in Minneapolis last year, shattering the Twin Cities Somali community.

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Paige Starkey told Judge Carolina Lamas they have offered Derrick Thompson a deal where he would plead guilty to five of 10 counts of criminal vehicular homicide while causing the accident and fleeing the scene. If he accepts, Thompson would serve between 32 and 38 years in prison.

In return, Starkey said the county would drop the other five charges of criminal vehicular homicide while operating a motor vehicle in a gross or negligent manner.

The offer will remain open until Nov. 4, the next scheduled court date on the case.

Family members of the women filled the courtroom on Tuesday afternoon, stepping into the hallway to huddle and cry after the potential deal was announced on the record.

The five young women who were killed were: Sabiriin Ali, 17, of Bloomington; Sahra Gesaade, 20, of Brooklyn Center; Salma Abdikadir, 20, of St. Louis Park; Sagal Hersi, 19, of Minneapolis; and Siham Adam, 19, of Minneapolis. On the night they were killed, the women were on their way home after running last-minute errands before a friend’s wedding the next day.

Their funeral last year was attended by thousands at a football field behind the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, where all five had all volunteered and taught. An online fundraiser to support the victims’ families raised over $450,000.

According to court documents, on June 16, 2023, a Minnesota state trooper observed Thompson weaving through traffic in a Cadillac Escalade heading northbound at 95 mph on Interstate 35W near 46th Street at about 10 p.m. The trooper never turned on his lights but pursued the Escalade and saw it abruptly cut across four lanes of traffic to exit the freeway at Lake Street. As the Escalade traveled down the exit ramp, it blew a red light and crashed into a Honda Civic, hitting it with such force that it was pushed out of the intersection and pinned against a wall for the 35W bridge. The trooper immediately approached the Civic and saw that all five victims were deceased.

Thompson fled on foot to a nearby Taco Bell, where an eyewitness identified him “100 percent positive” as the driver of the Escalade. Investigators used a receipt and surveillance video to show that Thompson had rented the car from a Hertz location at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport about 24 minutes before the crash.

When officers obtained a search warrant for the Escalade, they found a Glock 40 semiautomatic handgun, 250 grams of fentanyl in 2,000 individual pills, 35.6 grams of cocaine and 13 pills that tested positive for MDMA.

Thompson’s trial in Hennepin County District Court is scheduled to begin on Dec. 2, and the bulk of Tuesday’s hearing was largely procedural.

Tyler Bliss, Thompson’s attorney, filed a motion asking the court to suppress evidence that occurred immediately after the crash when Thompson was taken into custody.

Bliss argued that a witness was transported to the same location where Thompson was taken for a “show-up” and “Mr. Thompson was made to walk in front of the witness following police telling the witness that Mr. Thompson was the suspect.” Bliss argued that “the confrontation between the witness and the suspect was impermissibly suggestive.”

Bliss also asked the court to suppress statements that Thompson made to law enforcement after his arrest because police did not read him his Miranda rights. Bliss noted that the state and the defense are “likely in agreement about which statements would be subject to suppression.”

Last week, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed an intent asking the court to allow the state to produce evidence at trial from a different crime Thompson committed in 2018.

In that case, Thompson was speeding in a rental car on a highway in Ventura, Calif. When police tried to stop him, he fled and crashed, pinning a woman between his car and a retaining wall. Thompson ran on foot from the scene. The woman was left in a coma for multiple days. Police found more than $20,000 in cash and 18 pounds of marijuana in the car.

Thompson fled California, was eventually arrested and pleaded guilty in 2022 to evading an officer causing injury, leaving the scene of an accident causing injury or death, and conspiracy to sell marijuana. He served a year in prison and was released in January 2023. Moriarty also asked that a fifth-degree possession of cocaine conviction for Thompson in Ramsey County from 2015 be admissible.

Moriarty’s filing claimed those previous charges are essential to proving Thompson’s criminal intent and that the crash in Minneapolis was part of a pattern of criminal behavior.

In court Tuesday, lawyers for both sides said they believe they can reach a written agreement on these motions by Sept. 30. Bliss also said the defense needs to determine if there is a need for an evidentiary hearing for additional pretrial testimony, and that should be determined by Sept. 16.

Thompson, the son of former DFL state Rep. John Thompson, was hospitalized for two days after the crash and remains in the Hennepin County jail. In December, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced federal charges against Thompson from the crash for possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and illegal possession of a firearm. That trial is set to begin Oct. 7.