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KTSP reported in July 2016:

According to a Minneapolis police report, between 20 and 30 young men showed up in front of a woman's house about 9:30 in the morning and "the comments turned to threats."

"They were screaming at the house that they were going to kidnap you and they were going to rape you," one Minneapolis resident told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. "It was a very traumatizing experience."

The report indicates that these young men were driving onto the sidewalk and on the lawn, all while shooting off bottle rockets and screaming.

The video indicates the men are Somalian but the web article didn't print that detail.

Is it true that Somalian men threatened to rape a Lake Calhoun resident?

Community
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because [questions about unresolved current events and **issues currently under investigation by a court of law**, government, or other similar investigative body are off-topic.](http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/2870/5337) – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 14:55
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    And yet there are like 30 questions on this site about inauguration pictures. –  Feb 01 '17 at 15:07
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    AFAIK none of those are currently under investigation by a court of law. – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 15:09
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    By definition, they are unresolved current events –  Feb 01 '17 at 15:10
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    They are past events (of low significance) not under investigation. I don't think they add much to the site either, but in my interpretation are not off-topic. – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 15:12
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    @gerrit what makes you think this is still being investigated? Maybe they stopped investigating because they couldn't identify a particular person who threatened to rape and/or because no other cooperating witness heard the threat to rape. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 15:15
  • In any event, the claim in question is several months old, and there doesn't appear to be an open investigation. Certainly no arrests were reported –  Feb 01 '17 at 15:15
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    If they stopped investigating for lack of evidence then the question is unanswerable. – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 15:22
  • Yeah, because unless the police secure a conviction, it didn't really happen? –  Feb 01 '17 at 15:25
  • @KDog Unless the police secures a conviction we do not know for sure if it happened, possibly unless there is clear evidence but they never found the suspects. – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 15:27
  • @gerrit if numerous people witnessed the threat, but can't identify a particular person, the claim seems very answerable. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 15:33
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    Since no one arrested and convicted George Washington of being the first President of the US, that didn't happen either. –  Feb 01 '17 at 15:35

1 Answers1

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A copy of the police report may be requested using this link:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/police/records/WCMS1P-148183

Control number: MP-16-234983

Date: 28 June 2016

(as @rougon is saying in comments below, no one has been convicted of a crime in connection to the above alleged events)

The police report says:

The males reminded her that it was legal to kidnap and rape her

and the police officer acknowledged in the police report seeing video evidence of "approximately 10 Somali males acting rowdy".

DavePhD
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    Sorry, but is there any corroborating information other than her testimony? – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 13:26
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    @rougon Judy Layer's and the other phone calls to police. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 13:27
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    The question asked if it was true. These are all indirect eye-witness claims. I have not seen any evidence that any of the alleged men were found or if the story itself was corroborated, only investigated. It seems to jump the gun a little to claim that the event in question happened, especially the way that it is described here. – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 13:46
  • @rougon I added a link to help you get the police report directly from the police. Not much more I can do really. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 13:55
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    I would think that more of an acknowledgement that it is not known if the event actually happened since all the sources are first-person testimony. By my reading, the question doesn't ask if the story is real (which you document very well) but if the event is true. – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 14:09
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    I'm sorry if I'm being too skeptical here, but this country has a pretty wretched history of falsely accusing minorities of rape. – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 14:09
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    @rougon Nobody is saying any rape occurred. I had a somewhat similar situation happen to me and my sister in West Germany in the 1980s. She was 12 years old and we encountered a group of seemingly-Turkish men, who were very insistent that they wanted to marry her. They didn't say "rape" though. Still, it was scary. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 14:14
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    The issue for me--for a skeptics SE--is that your answer (and defense) seems to have no problem assuming that b/c a few people provided testimony (not in court), then it happened. That doesn't seem convincing. Similar things have happened in my life too, but that doesn't make every instance true. All I'm suggesting is a bit more awareness of contingency in your answer. Or do you think that's not warranted? – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 14:36
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    @rougon I'm already saying "according to the woman" and "allegedly". What other disclaimers should I add? – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 14:48
  • I would think a more explicit statement about the nature of the evidence, but clearly the OP accepts it and you are satisfied, so I'm sorry if I'm nitpicking here. – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 14:49
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    Multiple persons' testimony as well as the FBI and local police investigations see more than enough to conclude that this event probably occurred –  Feb 01 '17 at 15:10
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    @rougon I added another disclaimer at the end. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 15:16
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    @Kdog To be clear, I'm not saying it didn't. But hundreds--if not thousands--of men have been lynched in this country's history because of false rape and harassment claims. Not to mention that reportedly was part of Dylann Roof's reasons for his mass murder in a black church. So I think a little caution is useful, especially as Somali immigrants (as we have seen in other questions) are a contentious topic. – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 15:50
  • @rougon But this situation is the opposite of lynching, the people kept calling the police. The woman didn't even exercise her right to defend herself. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 15:59
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    I think we're veering off into discussion territory (or even another SE!), but I am using the history of lynching as a reason to be cautious. Historically there has been a lot of violence directed at minorities due to accusations of rape or harassment. These incidents have often resulted from appeals to the police. I'm not saying the report was made up, but given the readiness that people have had to believe that racial others have attacked American women, I think it's fair to inject some skepticism into readily believing the veracity a first-hand report. – rougon Feb 01 '17 at 16:15
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    @rougon this excerpt of the police report discusses some video and photograph evidence and multiple witnesses, http://www.informationliberation.com/files/Screenshot-537-620x363.png but I don't think there is any way to prove the actual threat of rape. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 16:48
  • Did the journalists even try to contact any Somali immigrants to get their point of view? – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 16:54
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    Most of this answer is sourced to a weblog by, [according to her own weblog](http://pamelageller.com/about/), Pamela Geller *President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America*. That's not an objective source at all. A more objective answer would source the police report directly and not rely on hate media. – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 16:58
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    @gerrit really it is quoting from an interview here: http://www.wnd.com/2016/07/woman-gives-chilling-1st-hand-account-of-muslim-rape-threat/#! Then the blog quoted that interview. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 17:01
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    @DavePhD From a quick glance that source (WND) [does not look a whole lot better](http://go.wnd.com/aboutwnd/). I suppose it's hard to find other sources because most news media do not consider unproven allegations of a group of rowdy teenagers shouting obscenities at women to be newsworthy (unfortunately it is rather common), but the police report is at least a more objective source of what eyewitnesses reported. – gerrit Feb 01 '17 at 17:08
  • @gerrit I mostly agree, that's why I explained in the answer how to get the police report. – DavePhD Feb 01 '17 at 17:10
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    World Net Daily is not a credible source of information. For example, they were one of the largest pushers of the Birther movement (with billboards and everything), and have been accused by the Southern Poverty Law Center of pushing white nationalism. Given their obvious bias, I have a hard time trusting them too much on the issue since what they report on the case will be highly selective at best. – KAI Feb 01 '17 at 23:06
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    At one point I lived about a mile from this location, and I find this somewhat difficult to believe in its entirety. Any of the beaches on Calhoun are incredibly busy, so the idea of a mob running around with something that looks like an ISIS flag and harassing a woman for a few hours seems highly implausible to me. Anything that emptied out Lake Calhoun beaches would draw tons of local press attention, and tons of police attention. We are talking about hundreds of people in June, not tens. – KAI Feb 01 '17 at 23:10
  • Let's face it. The MSM doesn't report on incidents like these unless it has to. And the original reporting even hid the Somali connection in its online, written reports. –  Feb 01 '17 at 23:35
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    Citation needed. – KAI Feb 02 '17 at 16:41
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    @KAI the police report says "The males reminded her that it was legal to kidnap and rape her". WND isn't the best source, but I think it is accurately quoting the woman. Unfortunately, some media outlets obey the recommendation that negative information concerning Muslims should not be reported: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/36003/has-the-council-of-europe-called-for-the-banning-of-british-newspapers-mentionin – DavePhD Feb 02 '17 at 17:09
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    @KAI Most of the events were on S. Upton Avenue, not at the beach itself. It was only 10am and the article says there were only a few people at the beach that early. WND says "reportedly" bottle rockets and pretend shooting scared the few people off the beach, not black flags or the woman being harassed. – DavePhD Feb 02 '17 at 17:20
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    @DavePhD Please do some research on your sources. Calling WND "not the best source" is an incredible understatement (they are a white nationalist site just like Breitbart). This specific author has a long reputation of being full of crap on Muslims, and [just straight up making stuff up](https://mediamatters.org/research/2017/01/24/conspiracy-outlet-wnd-still-pushing-its-anti-muslim-fake-news-story-even-after-it-was-debunked/215107). Now Media Matters has its own political tilt, but it cites sources you can follow. – KAI Feb 02 '17 at 17:23
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    @KAI I had already deleted that source prior to your comment. The police report is my only source now. – DavePhD Feb 02 '17 at 17:24