Bloody police incident in Minneapolis scares neighborhood

The police car’s rear windshield was shattered and the side was painted in a wide swath of fresh blood. A few feet away, a crowd gathered just outside the yellow “police line do not cross” tape circling the street at 31st and Bloomington. They stood in small groups with frowning faces.

On Friday, September 17th, my trip to the post office was interrupted with the all-too familiar South Minneapolis crime scene.

“They just pushed her head right through the back windshield!” a woman said as she shook her head rapidly back and forth, her voice rising. She waved her hands in the air and pointed at the police car parked in the middle of Bloomington Ave.
The squad car’s rear windshield was shattered and the driver’s side rear door and part of the rear quarter panel was painted in a wide swath of fresh blood. Parallel to, and facing the opposite direction, was a second police car. Behind it an idling ambulance.

Soon enough, the ambulance drove off, leaving a few cops lingering around. One was interviewing a witness while a few stray television reporters were trying to convince people to go on camera. I walked over to the group standing in front of Hairtime Barbershop to ask what had happened. Several in the crowd didn’t want to talk to me. Some of them did.

“I was rolling hair,” said Denise Franklin, a stylist at the shop. “And somebody said there is a lady running down the street and hollering for the police.”

“I could hear her hollering, ‘Police! Police!’ and by the time I got outside he had her down. I got real close—he didn’t even seem to mind. He was pushing her head down in the concrete. He had his knee on her back and he was punching her.”
“He was getting frustrated and screaming, ‘put your hands behind your back’ and she was putting up a fight. I told her, ‘honey put your hands behind your back. Please! Or they are going to kill you.’”

According to reports, the woman had been involved in an altercation with a man several blocks from the scene. In the ensuing fracas a car crashed into a backyard damaging a fence and a picnic table. From there the woman ran down the street yelling for help. When she reached the corner of 31st and Bloomington, she spotted a squad car heading in the direction of the crash.

When she reached the car, police claimed the woman tried to jump in the window and reach for the officer’s gun.

“The cops are saying she tried to grab his gun. How are you going to reach across and grab the gun?” said DeJuan Reid, a barber at the shop while he trimmed a client’s beard. Outside, the last squad car had just pulled away and traffic was getting back to normal.

Inside the barbershop, Franklin and Reid were breaking down what had just transpired with the customers.

“I saw the cop punch her head at least two times and the middle of her upper back one time. They were struggling around and then he got her laid out on the back of the car. I heard a boom but I didn’t see the impact. I saw her head go up and then down,” Reid continued.

“She had a white shirt on and the top half was covered in blood. There was blood running from her head. She was resisting arrest—I understand the man had to do what he had to do—but he didn’t have to use excessive force hitting her like that. I don’t know what police procedure is, but he sure missed a step.”

Police claimed that, after the woman allegedly attempted to take the officers gun, they were forced to subdue her. During the struggle they said she put her own head through the windshield.

Witnesses at the scene said it was just the opposite. While trying to get the woman in the rear seat the officer suddenly smashed her head through the rear windshield. And that wasn’t the end of it.

“Then the woman cop came up and escorted her into the car. She was face down on her stomach and she punched her three or four times,” Reid said.

As the morning slipped away the story was retold to barber Kevin Berkley, who had just arrived for a late morning appointment. No one was shocked at the details. People were angry, but it was the anger of resignation. All inside the barbershop, except myself, were African-American.

As a hair clipper buzzed, stories and advice on how to deal with the police shot back and forth. Never pull over unless there are other people around and it is on a street with lots of light. Keep your I.D. in the visor so they don’t think you are reaching for a gun. Don’t go out at night.

Talk turned to frustration with the neighborhood. Despite a myriad of new businesses, the area around Lake St. and Bloomington Ave. is still blighted with prostitution, violence, and drug dealing.

“I like the neighborhood. I grew up over here. But it has just gotten increasingly worse. Now I live in Brooklyn Park. I saw all of the change—generally all that change was from sugar to shit—the place got bad,” Berkley said. He doesn’t always feel safe in the area.

“When I leave the shop I lock up and look both ways, jump in the truck and split. The police around this particular area are crooked. I don’t come into the neighborhood late at night. They are the gang-bangers—the most dangerous element in the neighborhood,” he continued. “They know who is running things in these neighborhoods, but instead they bust somebody with $20 in their pocket. You catch hell from the people in the street. You catch hell from the cops. You can’t get nothing in the middle—it’s hard to live here.”

The discussion is not without empathy for the police—everyone knows this is a hard area to patrol.

“There is always something going on around here. These cops have got a lot to contend with but every situation is not the same. This lady was obviously terrified. After all of this goes on—then he started asking about what happened. They just think she’s a crackhead. Beat her up and put her in the car,” Reid said.
“But it doesn’t matter if you are on drugs—you are a human being,” Franklin added from the backroom. “This isn’t the 1800’s. This isn’t the slave days. It doesn’t matter what color your skin is.”

“I don’t trust them. I told my client this is why I don’t call the police, because you never know what their frame of mind is. You might be the next victim—the one to get it,” she said as she paused and looked up from the hair she was unrolling.
“The funny thing is—she was running and seeking help and she got beat up for it.”