U.S. Attorney for Minnesota: ‘Prosecution cases up 300% this year’

In May, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Andrew Luger, announced a major violent crime initiative along with partners from the FBI, ATF, BCA, Minneapolis Police and St. Paul Police.  The goal, Luger said at the time, was to go after violent offenders connected to gun crimes, carjackings and gangs.

Monday, Luger told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the number of cases charged and now being prosecuted in his office is up 300% from this same time a year ago and headway against adult carjacking offenders is being made.

“Most of the people involved in carjackings have a long criminal history and this is one stop on their violent crime journey,” said Luger. “They’re engaged in carjackings, shootings and robberies.”

Luger told KSTP there are three types of carjacking criminal patterns emerging in the investigations.  There are large, sophisticated carjacking rings who are targeting Uber and Lyft drivers and are a “profit-making machine” along with a second group of smaller rings that still operate together to identify and attack their victims.

Thirdly, Luger said, there are also individual carjackers who are still very dangerous even though they’re working alone.

“People who realize that shootings and drug dealings are only going to get them so much and they follow people, literally, out of grocery story, out of a shopping mall to their home, take them down, take their money, take their phone,” said Luger.

Luger said the bulk of his staff is working on the violent crimes initiative and will continue to do so in the near future.

If you are using the KSTP app, you can watch the full report here.