The Boom Island mass shooter and a court system that has failed us all

The mass shooting

On June 1, a mass shooting occurred at Boom Island Park in Northeast Minneapolis. Shots were fired into a crowd during a drive-by shooting, and multiple people in the crowd fired back at the suspect vehicle. Six people were shot, one fatally, and police recovered over 130 spent casings in the park. Minneapolis Police Chief described the scene as being “more akin to a war zone” than a city park.

Thankfully, in the ensuing weeks, the Minneapolis Police Department, despite being nearly 400 officers down, was able to track down the suspect and put together a solid case for prosecution.

Suspect charged

On June 27, Zyere Jakye Porter, 23, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with six counts of murder in connection with the mass shooting. According to the complaint, Porter, a member of the Lows street gang in North Minneapolis, was called to the park to shoot members of an opposing gang who had congregated there for a birthday party. While police recovered a pile of casings left behind by Porter, they also recovered spent shell casings from eight other guns fired during the shooting, many presumably returning fire at Porter.

While the diligent follow-up by a beleaguered police department is positive news, a review of Porter’s criminal history is not nearly as positive. The Hennepin County District Court has dealt with Porter on four significant criminal charges since 2020 and has utterly failed to incapacitate him even once. In fact, he was on probation for two of those charges at the time of the mass shooting. The court of second, third, and fourth chances is not only getting old, but is also simply failing us.

A failed court system

The following is a summary of the four significant criminal convictions against Porter:

• January 6, 2020, Porter was arrested just before his 18^th birthday for possessing a “firearm/assault weapon,” a felony for someone under 18 years old. Porter was found guilty on June 11, but his sentence was “continued without adjudication.” Porter was placed on court monitoring while he attended the “Marshall-Reed Program,” a rehabilitation course initiated by former Minnesota Vikings Jim Marshall and Oscar Reed. The court monitoring was to run through December 8, 2020, but records show Porter was dismissed from monitoring on November 12, 2020, and his case was “dismissed — conditions met” on December 9, 2020.
• It’s difficult to understand how the court above determined that Porter had met the conditions of his court monitoring, which specifically included a condition to remain law-abiding. On July 7, 2020, Porter was arrested and charged with stealing a motor vehicle, a felony — this was during the court monitoring time from the firearms case above, and during the time he was enrolled in the Marshall-Reed Program. Instead of revoking any departure plan above, or hammering Porter for the motor vehicle theft, the court convicted Porter on September 29, but then “Stayed” the imposition of the sentence for two years and placed Porter on probation through September 29, 2022. He was sentenced as a misdemeanant for a felony offense.
• On March 27, 2023, Porter was stopped by the Brooklyn Center Police Department for a driving infraction. When asked to step out of the car, Porter put the car in gear and sped off, leading police on a high-speed chase endangering the public, the police, and himself – a felony. On April 1, 2024, the court found Porter guilty of fleeing police in a motor vehicle, but departed from the Sentencing Guidelines, determining that Porter had “shown remorse” and that the crime was “less onerous” — than what, I ask? Porter was once again sentenced as a misdemeanant for a felony offense. This time he was placed on probation through April 1, 2026 — theoretically meaning that if he offended again, he would face incarceration through that 2026 date.
• It is once again difficult to understand how the court above arrived at its lenient decision. Because in October of 2023 Porter was once again arrested for possession of a handgun – a Glock 19 handgun with an extended magazine — this time as an adult. He was charged and convicted of a gross misdemeanor, despite his previous prohibiting conviction as a juvenile, which should have made it a felony with a mandatory minimum sentence. Instead, Porter was sentenced on May 13, 2024, to 180 days in the workhouse. But even that incarceration was “Stayed.” Porter was ultimately placed on probation for two years.

The takeaway

The Hennepin County District Court had four opportunities to incapacitate Porter. In each case he showed utter disregard for the law, but each time, he was given outrageously lenient sentences. He was taught, in no uncertain terms, that there are no consequences to crime. How often do we hear of the need to get serious about gun-related violence? Here was a young man with two firearms-related offenses before the age of 22, and the court simply wet the bed. Honestly, what did the court expect would happen? 

We are right to be fed up with this level of failure. When we hear about cases like that of Zyere Porter, we want to believe that they are one-offs — that the system isn’t really failing to this degree. But it is, and it’s failing spectacularly, all in the name of “social justice.”

The individual judges who handled the four cases above can argue that they followed the law, but in 2025, we can also demand that our court system show more ability to grasp the big picture and respond to the whole situation, and not just a sliver of the situation that presents itself in a single case. There is no reason why someone who committed the crimes Porter did by age 22 should have been free to commit a mass shooting at age 23.

Our justice system has a powerful and important tool at its disposal: incapacitation. It needs to use it, and when it does, all of the other efforts — rehabilitation, deterrence, and a sense of punishment — will be enhanced. 

The Minnesota Legislature just appropriated $1.43 billion dollars for the judiciary over the next two years. It’s beyond time we ensure this money is being spent effectively.

What other entity could fail as spectacularly as our court system, and never be held to account? We need hearings to further expose the rot. Law-abiding citizens deserve this.