Minneapolis mob attacks reporters
By The Associated Press
08.26.02
MINNEAPOLIS — Dozens of people assaulted journalists, smashed news-vehicle windows and shouted at police after an 11-year-old boy was wounded by a bullet that ricocheted from a police officer's gun on Aug. 22.
The officer was shooting at a pit bull dog that had been turned loose on police who were trying to serve a search warrant at a house suspected of narcotics activity. But the bullet hit concrete and ricocheted into the arm of the boy who wasn't in the line of fire, a police spokeswoman said.
The boy was treated and released from a hospital, spokeswoman Cyndi Barrington said.
The incident occurred early in the evening, but tensions grew later as TV news crews arrived to cover the event. Seventy-five to 100 people gathered in the north Minneapolis neighborhood and shouted at police and journalists.
Crowds surrounded a city bus and several news vehicles, smashing their windows. A KMSP-TV car was set on fire.
Two reporters for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis were beaten and suffered minor injuries, including one reporter, identified by the newspaper as Howie Padilla, who was pulled out of a station wagon. The other reporter, David Chanen, said he was thrown to the ground by a group of people shortly after he arrived at the scene.
"They started kicking me and laughing and they were punching me in the head," said Chanen. "I was just screaming for them to stop. I just curled up in a ball."
Chanen said the attack stopped after someone hollered that he was a reporter. "One of the guys who was beating me up picked me up. He said, 'You better just get in your car and get out of here.'"
The Star Tribune reported that Padilla and Chanen were both treated and released from metro-area hospitals early Friday morning. Padilla suffered a slight concussion and his teeth were damaged; one of Chanen's elbows has a small break. Each has large bruises, cuts and nose damage.
A photographer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press was hit in the head with a rock as a group of people surrounded his car. He received stitches at a nearby hospital, an editor for the Pioneer Press said.
Three people in the city bus suffered minor cuts from broken glass and a WCCO-TV reporter also was cut when the windows were smashed in her vehicle.
By midnight, police said the neighborhood appeared to have quieted. Officers in riot gear monitored the area throughout the night. The only arrests on Aug. 22 were of three people in connection with the search warrant on the house.
Tensions in the neighborhood have been running high since an incident Aug. 13 in which police shot and wounded a 19-year-old black man who allegedly pointed a gun at an officer. In the aftermath of that situation, a white police officer was alleged to have said, "You all got one of ours. Now we got one of yours," referring to a previous shooting.
The alleged statement, currently under investigation by police internal affairs, referred to a south Minneapolis shooting Aug. 1 that left a black woman and a white police officer dead.