The son of former Minnesota state Rep. John Thompson, a Black Lives Matter activist who was expelled by his own party, is the reported suspect in a deadly hit-and-run crash that killed five people last week, three years after he was convicted in another tragic hit-and-run.
The suspect is Derrick John Thompson, 27, of Brooklyn Park, sources told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, though police have not publicly named him.
Derrick is the son of John Thompson, who was expelled from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party caucus in September 2021 after allegedly falsely accusing a police officer of racial profiling and after his past legal troubles, including allegations of domestic assault, became public.
The elder Thompson made headlines during the George Floyd protests in 2020, when he and Black Lives Matter protesters descended on the home of police union leader Bob Kroll in Hugo, Minnesota.
Thompson was running for the state legislature at the time and went on to win his election that November after being endorsed by Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. He was unseated in the November 2022 election.
On Friday, a speeding vehicle ran a red light and collided with a vehicle carrying five Somali women, all under 20 years old, Minneapolis police said. All five victims, who were reportedly members of the Dar Al Farooq Islamic Center, were killed, and the suspect was being treated for his injuries over the weekend, according to local media.
Now-viral surveillance footage of the crash showed the speeding SUV slamming into the other vehicle’s driver’s side. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said his department is investigating the video's unauthorized release, the Star Tribune reported.
Derrick Thompson is awaiting charges that could be filed as soon as Tuesday, the Star Tribune reported.
Derrick has a long history of driving and drug-related offenses. In 2020, he was sentenced to eight years for a 2018 hit-and-run while fleeing police in Montecito, California. Officers found 17.6 pounds of marijuana and more than $20,000 in cash in the vehicle Derrick was driving, the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office said. The woman he struck spent several weeks in a coma after the crash and suffered life-altering injuries, the office said.
"This case was a series of dangerous criminal choices that resulted in a horrendous conclusion," District Attorney Joyce Dudley said at the time. "The victim has made a miraculous recovery but will still live with the injuries inflicted by this defendant for the rest of her life."
Derrick was sentenced to eight years in prison on Feb. 4, 2020, and he was given 502 days as credit for time already served and another 75 days credit for good behavior.
It’s not clear when Derrick was released from the California state prison system or why he was out of prison at the time of Friday’s crash in Minneapolis. His parole information is not public.
After the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom started releasing thousands of violent criminals early, including those doing time for murder, in an attempt to reduce to virus' spread within the prison system.
In 2016, California voted on Proposition 57, which was designed to give nonviolent offenders an opportunity to be released early after earning good behavior credits. Critics, however, have said violent criminals are being released with no explanation.
In Minnesota, Derrick has faced dozens of arrests and been convicted at least six times. He was sentenced to a year in prison and two years probation for carrying a firearm without a permit in 2014. The next year, he was convicted of a drug-related felony and sentenced to more than a month in prison and five years probation.
Thompson's campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
