If you are a teen and shoot somebody in the head you may have a get-out-of-jail-free card in Minnesota.

That is what amounts to “criminal justice” in my home state of Minnesota.

A teen accused of shooting a man in the head was found incompetent to stand trial, then let go. He’s now charged with shooting another man in the head. https://t.co/LTLGm0pQkO

— KARE 11 (@kare11) May 12, 2023

As I write this I am listening to police sirens through my open window. Yesterday, while writing, I heard at least 5 or 6 shootings in my neighborhood and sirens all day.

This is life in North Minneapolis, where I stupidly built a house 20 years ago. It rarely makes the news unless somebody is killed or the acts were caught on video. It’s not news if violence is common.

Uncommon stories like the one linked above do rise to the level of news because the outcome is so outrageous and there are actual bodies involved.

Hawa Lobeh fears leaving her apartment after what happened to her in February.

A 16-year-old boy pointed a gun at her in her apartment’s parking lot, then demanded her purse and her car as she begged him not to shoot.

Since then, she’s been unable to work because of the trauma and unable to afford repairs on the car after the teen crashed it into a snowbank. She thought she was going to die that day.

“It changed everything,” she said.

And yet, “Police said, ‘You are the lucky one,’’ she said.

Lucky because an hour earlier, police believe the same teen shot a man in the head outside of a nearby market, nearly killing him.

That man is still in the hospital.

Hawa’s story wouldn’t even be newsworthy but for the fact that she was nearly shot just an hour after a man was shot in the head by the same kid. Carjackings have become common here.

Carjackings used to be so rare here that they literally didn’t keep statistics. Here is a map of 2022 carjackings within the city:

That is just for the City of Minneapolis, which is why there is such a hard boundary. The dropoff outside the city is steep, of course, but there is spillover.

Such common occurrences rarely get reported. If there is a spectacular crash, an actual assault, or something with blood involved it may merit a mention. Otherwise, it is just life in the 2020s post-George Floyd. This is equity in action.

What makes Hawa’s case particularly newsworthy, though, is that the unnamed kid who hijacked her car and shot a man in the head earlier in the day had done the same thing before.

Yep. 8 months earlier he shot a different man in the head.

Only eight months earlier, the teen was accused of shooting another victim in the head at a Brooklyn Park gas station.

(Editor’s note: KARE 11 generally does not name juveniles charged with crimes)

In that case, the teen, who already faced more than a dozen other crimes, was found mentally incompetent to stand trial due to his mental health and low cognitive functioning.

His shooting case was suspended, and he was then released to his mother, court records show. At the same time, more than a dozen misdemeanor charges were dismissed.

You see, here in the great state of Minnesota, we let kids go if they are judged too mentally ill to stand trial. You can literally shoot somebody and be released, having your entire list of offenses dismissed.

No mental health treatment. Nobody is committed.

Poof! You are free to go, kid. Go forth and shoot some more!

America closed its mental hospitals because they were deemed too cruel–and they likely were hellholes–but we substituted these institutions with an expanded prison system that doesn’t even pretend to treat mentally ill people.

Yet in the case of young offenders, we don’t even go that far, at least in Minnesota. Prisons are too cruel, mental institutions are too cruel, so we just let the offenders themselves be cruel to others. Nobody has yet had the bright idea of committing the mentally ill to institutions where we actually care for the offenders.

We haven’t the excuse of not having the resources. Have you ever seen the expense involved in keeping somebody in jail? It is astronomical. Not all, or even most, prisoners are insane. But many are and should be provided treatment.

But no. In response to the failure of incarceration to rehabilitate offenders, the Left has decided that criminals and the criminally insane should be put back into society to prey on everybody else.

And these are the results.

During the writing of this article, I have heard yet more sirens. Only one gunshot though.

The carnage continues.

Auto theft on Kenwood Pkwy.
Suspects arrived in a stolen Kia Sportage, EUF868

12:08

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) May 12, 2023

The Minneapolis Experience™
A "fleet" of stolen Kias in Minneapolis this morning.
The weekend terrorism begins.https://t.co/CGQ2slelwc

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) May 12, 2023

After 10 a.m., a stabbing victim was found outside 28th and 10th Ave S. Stabbed several times. Dropped off from a black sedan that contained 4 BM.
Scene determined to be at 28xx Blaisdell Ave, where police found some blood. A warrant is reportedly being obtained to search. pic.twitter.com/Dhp9mgckqj

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) May 12, 2023

Stolen vehicle driving recklessly through yards. No plates, green Rav4.
37th and Emerson/Fremont Ave N.
WM driver, 20s, blonde hair, Native F passenger
Nearly struck a squad.
11:13
Now on 33rd.
Police say they were able to ID the driver.

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) May 12, 2023