At least 20 police officers responded to a melee in Moorhead, Minn., early Sunday that involved up to a dozen young African immigrants fighting not only with hands and feet, but also with a taser, knives, a replica handgun and a shovel.
| Still dealing with the global warming in Minnesota, it appears. |
More than 100 people looked on, many yelling, in the parking lot of a bowling alley on the city's north side, police said.
| Not much entertainment in Moorhead? |
Nobody was seriously injured, but 20-year-old Mohamoud Sharif of Fargo, N.D., was treated for a superficial stab wound to his buttock.
| A pin prick in the fleshy upper part of the thigh, as they used to say, but wounded mostly in his pride. How does one explain a wound there, on one's wedding night? |
An 18-year-old man refused treatment after police saw him get hit in the head with a shovel.
| Clearly he won't miss the brains that leaked out as a result. |
Also refusing treatment was a man pistol-whipped with the replica handgun.
| But it's a replica! How cool is that?! |
It was the latest eruption in ethnic tension in the Fargo-Moorhead area between young men from the two war-torn African countries of Sudan and Liberia, authorities said.
The hostilities worry cultural leaders in those communities, including Gibson Jerue, a 43-year-old Liberian immigrant from Fargo, N.D. He told of incidents dating to 2008, including one that sent a young Liberian man assaulted in Fargo to the hospital. In the past two months, there have been more incidents, including windows smashed or other damage to Liberian and Sudanese residences, Jerue said.
| Send all those involved back to where they came from. |
Now the violence has spread across the Red River to nearby Moorhead. Most, if not all, of those involved Sunday were from Fargo and had immigrated within the past decade, Moorhead Police Lt. Jim Nielsen said.
Jerue said he and other Liberian elders worry that innocent older African immigrants could be walking down the street and be attacked because of the feuding. "Our concern is what is happening is not in the interest of both communities," Jerue said.
Police don't know yet what caused the violence Sunday. |