MELEE BREAKS OUT AFTER POLICE SHOOTING

About 75 to 100 people in the Jordan neighborhood of North Minneapolis
rioted Thursday evening after police said an officer accidentally shot an
11-year-old boy in the arm while executing a search warrant. The boy did
not have life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital,
Minneapolis police said.

Several vehicles were damaged and at least six people were injured,
including three journalists covering the incident. A Metro Transit bus had
several windows smashed and three passengers sustained scrapes, one
requiring hospital treatment. A station wagon and an SUV were set on fire.

By midnight, about a dozen police cars filled with officers in riot gear
were continuing to monitor the neighborhood, particularly the corner of
26th and Knox avenues. A Minnesota State Patrol helicopter flew overhead,
using infrared equipment to look for lingering groups of people.

Police said the neighborhood appeared to be quieting.

The incident began about 7:15 p.m. when police executed a search warrant at
1716 26th Ave. N., looking for narcotics. As one officer got out of a
police van, he saw a man in front of the house with a pit bull on a leash,
according to Cyndi Barrington, Minneapolis police spokeswoman.

The officer said to the man, "Do not let that dog go," but the man released
the dog. According to Barrington, the police officer shot and killed the
dog, and at least one bullet ricocheted off the concrete sidewalk and hit
the boy, whom police called a bystander.

Barrington said the boy, who was taken to North Memorial Medical Center in
Robbinsdale, was not in the direct line of fire.

"It's a very unfortunate situation," she said.

Shortly after the shooting, a crowd gathered at the scene. A source close
to the investigation said, "They were pelting us (police) with rocks and
bottles. We needed to get out of there."

Police said the crowd started gathering and rumors were spreading about how
the boy was injured. Police said some of those rumors were incorrect. They
said people then were running and screaming through the neighborhood,
throwing rocks and bottles at officers and journalists.

Some neighborhood residents appeared to be afraid and ran for cover.

Don and Sondra Samuels, who have lived in the neighborhood for four years
and have picketed against drug dealers in the house where the warrant was
executed, went to 26th and Knox as soon as they heard about the problems.

"The raid (by police) was absolutely legitimate," Sondra Samuels said.

The Samuelses, who are black, were upset that they heard "a lot of race
rhetoric. This was a race riot," Sondra Samuels said.

"There was a comfort level in the crowd with the violence that was taking
place," said Don Samuels.

"It was a little bit scary the way the police withdrew," Don Samuels said.
"If I were a law-abiding white resident and the police withdrew like that I
would feel abandoned."

"I heard some scary language," Don Samuels said. "Clearly this was not my
community talking. Those people giving voice to the community were totally
anathema to the life I want to live."

Three people, all of Minneapolis, were arrested in connection with the
search warrant, police said. They were Jermaine Jerrell Miller, 19, Leasha
Ann Dewitt, 26, and Shirley Ann Powell, 48, a resident of the house police
were searching. Miller was arrested in connection with drug charges; the
other two are facing weapons charges.

Last year, police were called to the house six times and have been there 13
times so far this year.

Thursday's search warrant uncovered one gun, as well as several packages of
marijuana "that were ready for sale on the street," according to the source
familiar with the incident.

Tensions in the neighborhood have been running high following an incident
Aug. 13 in which police shot and wounded a 19-year-old African-American man
who allegedly pointed a gun at an officer. In the aftermath of that
situation, a white police officer was alleged to have made a disparaging
reference "You all got one of ours. Now we got one of yours." about a
previous shooting.

The alleged statement, currently under investigation by police internal
affairs, referred to a South Minneapolis shooting on Aug. 1 that left an
African-American woman and a white police officer dead.

"It has been an extremely tense situation," Barrington said.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak canceled appointments for this morning to be
in the community.

"We've spent a fair amount of time in that community with people who want
the police to address drug issues," Rybak said. "There are many other
members who want to have a better dialogue with the police.

"This is not a simple issue."

At one point, four Pioneer Press journalists escaped as about 20 people
surrounded their car, pelting it with glass and debris. A rock hit
photographer Nate Thomson on the head before he got into the car. He
received stitches at North Memorial and was released.

"I've never seen anything like it," said public safety reporter Lisa
Donovan. "People were coming at us and they were screaming, 'Let's get 'em.' "

Abraham Awaijane, who owns the Big Stop Foods at the corner of 26th and
Knox, said he saw some members of a group of about 50 people pull Howie
Padilla, a Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter, out of a station wagon and
beat him up. Awaijane said he pulled Padilla into the store and locked the
building.

The group then set a station wagon on fire, he said.

"They attacked a news truck, too," the witness said. The vehicle, an
abandoned KMSP-TV sport-utility vehicle, had been pelted with rocks and
other debris. A WCCO-TV vehicle was also damaged when its windows were
broken out.

Padilla and Pioneer Press reporter Judith Yates Borger took shelter in the
Big Stop Foods store for about an hour until police arrived. Borger said
Padilla looked beaten up and was confused about what day of the week it was.

Another Star Tribune reporter, David Chanen, was also assaulted, according
to the newspaper.

KMSP news director Dana Benson said that at one point a reporter,
photographer and a truck operator were chased into their satellite truck
and were able to lock themselves in while people were pounding on it. They
called their newsroom, and police arrived to rescue them. No one was
injured, but the truck was damaged to the point it was undrivable, and the
other KMSP vehicle was lit on fire and destroyed.