Dolal Idd

Dolal Bayle Idd (July 18, 1997 – December 30, 2020) was born in Somalia to parents from Kebri Dehar, a city in the Somali region of Ethiopia.

His father resettled in the United States from Somalia in 1997, the same year Dolal Idd was born.

Dolal Idd was three-years old when he emigrated with other family from Somalia to the United States.

The family first resided in San Diego, California, and then moved to the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, first residing in the suburb of New Hope, to be near extended family who already lived there.

The Idd family had 11 children, including Dolal Idd.

Idd resided in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie for most of his adolescent years.

Minneapolis police had shot at people 17 different times from 2015 to the end of 2019, killing a person in five circumstances, most notably Jamar Clark, a black man, in 2015 and Justine Damond, a white woman, in 2017.

In 2015, Idd graduated from Eden Prairie High School according to the Sahan Journal or Minnetonka High School according to the Star Tribune.

After high school, Idd travelled with the family to Ethiopia and stayed there for several months.

In the Minneapolis suburb of Falcon Heights in 2016, a police officer from another nearby suburb, St. Anthony, shot and killed Philando Castile, a black man, during a traffic stop.

In 2016, Idd had briefly enrolled at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota, for the spring semester, and he hoped to study computers or pursue a career as an emergency medical technician.

He was also interested in learning more about Islam and the family discussed sending him to Egypt to study the Quran and the Arabic language.

Idd accumulated a criminal record in Minnesota over in next few years that included seven misdemeanors and a felony conviction.

Dolal Idd was a 23-year-old Somali-American man who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Minneapolis police officers at approximately 6:15 p.m. CST on December 30, 2020, after he shot at them from inside the car he was driving.

The fatal encounter happened in the U.S. state of Minnesota during a police sting operation.

Minneapolis police were investigating Idd for illegal possession and sale of firearms.

Idd was prohibited from possessing firearms as part of his probation from a prior felony conviction.

A confidential police informant intermediated as a buyer for a semi-automatic pistol, and made arrangements for a buyer to purchase the gun from Idd so that police officers could arrest him.

Video captured by a police body camera the evening of December 30 showed police officers attempting to arrest Idd who struck several police vehicles with the car he was driving.

After the vehicle driven by Idd was blocked by several police vehicles to prevent escape, Idd fired a handgun from inside the car he was driving through a rolled up window that shattered outward and hit a police vehicle containing several police officers.

Minneapolis police officers Paul Huynh, Darcy Klund, and Jason Schmit returned several rounds of gunfire, killing Idd at the scene.

The shooting on December 30, 2020, took place in the parking lot of a busy Holiday gas station at the intersection of Cedar Avenue and East 36th Street in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, 1 mi from the location where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020.

Floyd's murder resulted in prolonged local unrest and worldwide protests.

Idd's death was the first killing by a Minneapolis police officer since that of Floyd.

The December 30, 2020, shooting affected the local community still in mourning over Floyd's murder seven months prior, and reignited local debate over police brutality and race relations.

In several rallies, protesters questioned the police narrative of the December 30 incident and if police officers could have used better de-escalation tactics to prevent an exchange of gunfire.

In the vehicle driven by Idd, law enforcement investigators recovered a pistol and two spent ammunition cartridges on the driver's side, as well as a backpack on the passenger's side that contained ammunition and a Leinad PM-11 machine pistol, the type of gun a confidential police informant arranged to purchase from Idd.

The Minneapolis police, citing video footage and witness statements from the incident, said officers returned fire in response to an initial shot by a civilian.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension opened an investigation of the officer-involved shooting.

The bureau's preliminary report, issued on January 4, 2021, said that Idd struck several police vehicles with the car he was driving and that he had shot his gun first before police returned fire.

Minneapolis police officers Huynh, Klund, and Schmit fired their weapons at Idd during the December 30 incident.

Investigators at the scene recovered six bullets and seven bullet fragments from the rounds that the officers fired at Idd.

An autopsy report classified Idd's death as a homicide, due to multiple gunshot wounds.

The conduct of the officers, and if they were legally justified in using force, was reviewed by the Dakota County attorney's office.

The final charging decision memorandum it released on August 6, 2021, said the officers' actions were justified and that no criminal charges would be filed against them.

Idd's death provoked a strong reaction in the local community as it was reminiscent of recent, fatal police encounters, particularly the shootings of black men.

Idd's death came as Minneapolis officials attempted to reform the city's policing policies in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020.

Officials were also addressing a wave of violent crime that followed widespread civic unrest in late May and early June 2020 after Floyd's murder.

Idd's death was the 83rd homicide in the city in 2020, a number that eclipsed the previous two years combined.

The Powderhorn Park area that featured the George Floyd Square, a street intersection that protesters transformed to an "autonomous zone", had been the location of several violent crimes since Floyd's murder and authorities had investigated firearm dealers that used the barricaded area as cover for illicit activities.