Woman Shot By Robbinsdale Officer Charged With Assault
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A woman, shot by police, is now charged with assault.
Police say 18-year-old Tania Harris was chasing another woman with a knife last night in Robbinsdale.
Police were called to an apartment building on the 3700 block of Hubbard Avenue North at about 5:40 p.m. Thursday on a call about an unwanted person.
When officers arrived, Harris burst out of the door with a large knife in her hand, the criminal complaint says, and was heard screaming, "I'm going to kill you, b****!"
They say asked the woman to drop her weapon and when she refused, she was shot twice in the stomach.
Many in the community are upset about this shooting and believe the police didn't have to shoot.
Harris's parents told WCCO they were the ones who called police after a group of teens showed up at their home looking for trouble.
"This can't be true, I'm in a dream," mother Kim Tolbert said.
Tolbert said watching her daughter, Tania, get hit by two bullets from a police officer's gun was the worst day of her life.
"After they took her down, they handcuffed me," Tolbert said.
She said she was the one who called police for protection after two young men and a young woman showed up at the building where they lived, demanding to see Tania.
She said she tried to diffuse the situation.
"The girl was like, 'No.' She kept telling me, 'No, I'm here and I'm going to fight her,' and I kept telling her, 'No, you are not going to fight my daughter,'" Tolbert said.
Tolbert said her daughter, who was inside watching the ordeal, came outside with a knife.
"Upon arrival on scene, officers encountered the adult female with a weapon and was subsequently shot by a responding Robbinsdale police officer," chief Jim Franzen said.
The family's pastor, Larry Cook, believes police used excessive force in dealing with the situation.
"This child is roughly about 100 pounds," Cook said. "The knife probably bigger than she is. There has to be another way of handling this type of situation."
Tania's parents have not been allowed to see their daughter. She's been charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon.
The group Black Lives Matters has organized a rally, saying they want justice for Tania and demanding prosecution of the police.
"If she was a young white student, it's hard to believe lethal force would have been used against her based on countless examples of police applying a different set of standards for whites in similar situations," the group said in a statement. "The police's attempts to vilify Tania and immediately justify their unnecessary violence towards her in the media reflects a larger pattern in which black victims of police shootings around the country have been demonized."