Shooter Charged with Murder After Killing Mother, Injuring Child in Minneapolis Alley
via Scott County Sheriff's Office
Prosecutors have charged a 20-year-old man from Savage, Minn., with second-degree murder after a shooting in Minneapolis claimed the life of a mother and severely injured her young son.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Hennepin County, officers responded to reports of gunfire in an alley near the 2900 block of 18th Avenue South at approximately 9:20 p.m. on May 19, 2024. Upon arrival, officers found a woman fatally shot in the backseat of her vehicle.
She had been holding her two-year-old son, who was also struck by gunfire but survived despite life-threatening injuries.
Investigators determined that the woman and her three children had parked in the alley to allow her husband, the children’s father, to borrow tools from a relative. Surveillance footage captured the scene as another vehicle approached the parked car. The shooter, later identified as Ayale Abdullahi Ali, exited the passenger side of the second vehicle and walked slowly toward the victim's vehicle, opening fire into the backseat where the woman and her children were seated.
The footage shows Ali firing multiple rounds into the car before the woman’s husband returned to find his wife and child shot. Ali then allegedly fired additional rounds at the husband but did not hit him.
Officers recovered seven shell casings from the scene, all determined to have been fired from the same 9mm firearm. Authorities also obtained social media records showing Ali holding firearms and attempting to trade guns just 24 hours after the shooting.
Ali, who is on probation for an aggravated robbery conviction in Scott County, now faces one count of second-degree murder and four counts of second-degree attempted murder. The criminal complaint notes the state will likely seek an aggravated sentence, noting that the crime was committed in the presence of young children.
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