Posted on 06/20/2023 2:46:09 AM PDT by Libloather
The son of an expelled ex-Minnesota state representative with a previous hit-and-run conviction in California was arrested and charged with murder for allegedly plowing into a vehicle carrying five Somali women, killing them all, in Minneapolis.
Horrifying video shows the moment Derrick John Thompson, 27, smashed into the car carrying Sabiriin Ali, 17, Sahra Gesaade, 20, Salma Abdikadir, 20, Sagal Hersi, 19, and Siham Adam, 19, officials said.
Thompson has a criminal record that includes a 2018 hit-and-run in California that gave the woman life-changing injuries. She spent several weeks in a coma.
He was given an eight-year sentence, with 502 days as credit for time already served and another 75 days credit for good behavior.
Thompson was freed and on Friday is suspected of being behind the wheel of a speeding car that tried to flee a police officer when it crashed into a vehicle with the five women on Lake Street as they were getting ready for a friend's wedding the next day.
When contacted as to why he was out of prison, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney could not give any specific reason but suggested that California's proposition 57 gave the state 'wide latitude to award additional custody credits, as well as, early parole opportunities.'
Under the law as they saw it, Thompson should've had to spend another five-and-a-half years in prison.
The vehicle Thompson was driving at the time had over 17 pounds of marijuana and $20,000 in cash, according to Fox News.
It is one of Thompson's many arrests and a lengthy rap sheet for the son of a disgraced Minnesota politician.
Thompson's father John Thompson was expelled from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party caucus in September 2021 for lying about being racially profiled by a police officer over his past problems with the law...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
LOL
Yep...missed being dead by a couple seconds.
i found some context to the california release from prison:
from fox9 in Minneapolis:
California court records show in 2020, Thompson was sentenced to eight years in prison for a 2018 crash in California that left a woman in a coma, fighting for her life.
Prosecutors said the case stemmed from an incident in September 2018. Police with the Ventura Police Department in California tried to pull Thompson over while he was driving with his friends on the shoulder of the U.S. 101, but he drove away. Thompson lost control of the vehicle and hit a woman. The victim was a tourist who was staying at a nearby house with several friends. Prosecutors said Thompson immediately fled the scene, while the victim fought for her life in a coma for several weeks.
nope calif prop 57 leads to early release of criminals in calif.
“Marijuana is discovered in nearly every Felony.”
Link?
How about the one we’re reading?
One is not “nearly every.”
Glad I could help you with that.
Your friend Thompson has mangled his synapses, and had marijuana in an earlier incident, this time in California, where he didn’t QUITE kill another female. (To make a total of only five dead women).
“Thompson flew to Los Angeles, where he stayed at a hotel with two friends from Minnesota. On Sept. 4, 2018, one of the friends rented a Chevrolet Malibu, and Thompson drove the three of them back from Santa Barbara, Calif., the car’s trunk loaded with 17 pounds of marijuana. Amid stop-and-go traffic on Hwy. 101, he drove 100 yards on the emergency shoulder to exit the highway.
When police officers from the city of Ventura reportedly saw Thompson pass them, driving in a reckless manner, they switched on the lights of their truck and followed him. He did not stop, so they gave pursuit.
Thompson claimed he didn’t see the police on the highway or on the road he took running along a tourist-filled beach. He said he did see a black truck with lights and sirens in the rearview mirror in Montecito, but didn’t think it was coming for him.
By the time Thompson’s eyes returned to the road, he saw a stop sign and slammed on the brakes. The car skidded and veered toward three women crossing the street.
Jennifer Jensen, then 57, had flown to Montecito from North Carolina and was walking with two friends to the ocean. One of the women saw the Malibu make an out-of-control turn, felt a gust of air and smelled rubber. “Run!” she screamed.
Thompson slammed into Jensen and crashed into a retaining wall. Her body hit the windshield so hard the glass cracked. A witness saw Jensen thrown 20 to 30 feet into the air.
After the crash, Thompson said, he saw people jump out with guns and yell, “Freeze!” He said he didn’t know they were police — and ran.
“I was scared for my life,” he said.
Thompson took a cab to the airport and left town. “I chilled in Vegas,” he recalled.
He missed his appointment with a Minnesota probation officer and went to Phoenix, eventually flying back to Minnesota. Asked whether he was evading arrest, he said he wasn’t and gave a puzzling answer about leaving the scene.
“I looked at it like … if this is the owner of the vehicle, yeah, it’s my actions,” said Thompson. “But anything that you need, as far as insurance, as far as anything, they’re able to help you. They got more help than I can help you.”
He was arrested and extradited to California in October 2018. Thompson said his father referred an attorney to him; by then, John Thompson was rising as an activist against police misconduct after an officer killed his friend Philando Castile. Thompson was elected to the Legislature in 2020 but lost in the primary last year after the DFL caucus expelled him.
Jensen said in a March 2023 deposition that she doesn’t remember the crash — or anything from her vacation. She remembers only waking up in the hospital nearly two months later.
Jensen suffered a traumatic brain injury, crushed pelvis, broken arm, fractured ribs and spinal injuries. Doctors induced a coma to perform surgery. She was hospitalized for three months, and spent extensive time in out-patient rehabilitation. She suffered memory loss and struggled to talk normally: “I just spewed out words. Didn’t make any sense.”
She improved with therapy, but problems remain: When driving, she can’t turn her head far enough to check traffic. She can’t lift objects as easily, swim or get on the floor to play with her grandchildren. Once a foodie, she lost her sense of taste and smell.
“I get a lot of anxiety from my brain injury,” Jensen said.
In 2019, she sued Thompson, his passengers and the police who followed them. She claimed the officers acted with reckless disregard for her and other pedestrians by pursuing Thompson through a residential neighborhood beyond their jurisdiction. Jensen said the crash cost her more than $200,000 in lost income as a saleswoman that year.
She and her attorneys did not return messages.
Thompson served his sentence at a prison fire camp, earning credits for good behavior and rehabilitation programs that allowed for early release. In his October 2022 deposition, an attorney asked Thompson if he would go home upon leaving prison.
“Is it your plan to go back to Minnesota?”
“No,” Thompson said, noting that he was ordered to pay $150,000 in victim restitution. Citing California law, he added, “I cannot go back until my restitution is paid off before I get off parole.”
Thompson was released in January, and months later Minnesota reinstated his license. In March, as the civil suit headed to trial, Jensen said in a deposition that she had recently started receiving restitution.
“I know that they’re garnishing the guy who hit me, they’re garnishing his wages, and I’ve gotten a couple small checks for that,” said Jensen.
She estimated that Thompson so far has paid her $200.”
I’m SO glad MY friends aren’t killers...
So many words and still no support for your claim.
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