When I was putting together my story yesterday about San Diego Police Officer Abdiweli Heibeh, I mentioned that he claims to be the first Somali-born police officer in the United States.
That’s a hard fact to confirm, but in the interests of due diligence, I put a call in to the Minneapolis Police Department. The Twin Cities are home to the largest Somali population in the United States, so if anywhere’s likely to have a Somali-born cop, it’s there.
This morning, I got a call from Lt. Amelia Huffman of the Minneapolis Police Department. She confirmed that, while she has a number of community service workers on the force who are Somali-born, her department currently has no sworn, Somali-born police officers.