A Somali-run day care center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, claims someone broke into it and stole “important documents,” including children's enrollment information, employee IDs and checkbooks.
Nasrula Mohamed, a 20-year-old manager at Nokomis Day Care, told reporters that the break-in occurred sometime Tuesday when the suspect entered through the kitchen at the rear of the facility, then damaged a wall and entered the business' office. New York Post reported.
Mohamed blamed the hacking on citizen journalist Nick Shirley's viral video. demonstration of alleged fraud at nearly a dozen Minnesota child care centers.
“This is devastating news and we don't know why it is targeting our Somali community as it all happened because of one video made by a specific person,” Mohamed said, adding that the daycare had allegedly received “hateful” and “threatening” messages over the past few days.
“It’s scary and exhausting,” he said, before calling Shirley’s report “false.”
Nokomis Daycare is not among the facilities included in Shirley's video, which has been viewed X more than 132 million times to date.
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), affiliated with Hamas and appointed several states as a terrorist criminal organization, rushed to Nokomis's defense in a statement Wednesday.
“This disturbing incident raises serious concerns about the real-world consequences of anti-Somali, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate speech circulating online,” said Jailani Hussain is executive director of CAIR Minnesota. “When misinformation and degrading rhetoric against an entire community is allowed to spread unchecked, acts of intimidation and vandalism become more likely. Even though this daycare center had nothing to do with the viral video circulating online, it was still a target. This raises serious questions about whether bias played a role in the vandalism, and these issues merit a thorough investigation by law enforcement.”
Minneapolis Police Department said Fox9 reported that the daycare reported a break-in on the morning of Dec. 30 and that preliminary information indicates the facility was broken into during the night while it was closed. Police said they were notified by daycare employees of what was allegedly stolen from the building Wednesday morning.
The incident comes at a time when at least $1 billion in fraud has been uncovered in Minneapolis,” he said.including fraudulent payments for food, housing and child care, with U.S. Attorney's Office warnings that the real figure could be as high as $9 billion.” Mail reported.
So far, 92 people have been arrested in connection with the scheme, 80 of them Somali immigrants.
Late Tuesday, President Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services announced it would freeze all Minnesota child care payments, totaling $185 million in 2025, until state officials can provide evidence that the payments are legal.
