Driver In Crash That Killed 5 Young Women Charged With 10 Counts Of Homicide

MINNEAPOLIS — The driver who killed five young women last week in a Minneapolis crash is charged with 10 counts of vehicular homicide, according to authorities.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announced the charges Thursday against 27-year-old Derrick John Thompson of Brooklyn Park.

“The deaths of these five young women is devastating for their loved ones and has shaken our community,” Moriarty said in a news release.

“We value each of these young women’s lives and plan to seek a separate sentence for each life lost. I firmly believe in the potential for redemption and second chances, but Mr. Thompson has repeatedly engaged in extraordinarily dangerous criminal driving conduct related to apparent large-scale drug dealing.”

The crash occurred shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, according to authorities. A state trooper saw the rented Cadillac Escalade that Thompson was driving traveling 95 mph and weaving lanes on northbound Interstate 35 West, before it abruptly sped onto the Lake Street exit ramp and T-boned a Honda Civic crossing 2nd Avenue at a green light, authorities said.

The force of the crash crushed the Civic, pushing it out of the intersection, pinning it to the I-35W bridge, and killing all five people inside, according to authorities.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victims as 20-year-old Salma Mohamed Abdikadir, 19-year-old Sagal Burhaan Hersi, 20-year-old Sahra Liban Gesaade, 19-year-old Siham Adan Odhowa and a 17-year-old girl, authorities said.

Thompson fled on foot and was found at a nearby Taco Bell, according to authorities, who said he suffered a broken hip and forehead laceration, and that toxicology and DNA tests were pending.

Inside the Escalade, police found a Glock 40-caliber semiautomatic handgun with an extended magazine loaded with live ammunition as well as 250 grams of fentanyl, 13 MDMA pills, and about 35.6 grams of cocaine, authorities said.

Thompson has a long list of prior convictions in multiple states, including evading police causing injury or death, hit-and-run resulting in serious injury or death, and felony conspiracy in California, authorities said.