Officials look for payoff in Native Mob sweep

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Members of the Native Mob gang have shot rivals in Minneapolis, sold drugs in Duluth, and thrown boiling water in a person’s face in Crow Wing County. Authorities say they’ve also assaulted an informant on the White Earth Indian Reservation and shot up houses from Cass Lake to Mille Lacs.

This week’s federal indictment of 24 suspected Native Mob members will disrupt the activity of one of Minnesota’s most violent gangs and could bring some communities a reprieve from violence, authorities said. But it likely won’t dismantle the organization, which is highly structured, active in prison, and wields power from the Twin Cities to reservations throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

“I consider Native Mob to be one of the most significant and problematic Native American-based gangs in the country, because of their organization ... their influence in so many communities and because of their clear propensity to engage in criminal behavior,” said Christopher Grant, a national Native American gang specialist in Rapid City.

The gang, made up of mostly American Indian men and boys, started in Minneapolis in the 1990s. Some of its original members were connected to another street gang, but broke off and formed their own group, Grant said.

The gang has about 200 members, according to the indictment, and is actively recruiting new ones.

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