'We're Not Monsters': Mpls. Mother Decries Rising Violence After Shielding Children From Gunfire
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- During a shooting Saturday in north Minneapolis, a mother who lives nearby rushed to protect her children as a bullet flew into their home.
"I had to deal with tossing and turning last night, holding my 5-year-old son as he screamed and screamed and screamed and wouldn't go to bed," said Courtney Bailey. "He's traumatized."
Bailey says she heard a shootout outside her apartment near Penn and Glenwood avenues. Her 5-year-old looked to the window to see what was going on.
"My son grabbed his brother," Bailey said. "The glass went across my baby's face, shattered on my couch, all over my floor."
She says friends are reluctant to visit her.
"We're just in a situation right now where there's kind of a state of lawlessness," said Mike Martin, the Minnesota chapter president of the Midwest Gang Investigators Association.
Martin policed gang violence in Minneapolis for 25 years.
He believes a small number of young gang members are likely responsible for the recent shootings, including four in Minneapolis since Saturday.
"You have to have officers that are in day-to-day contact with the gang members who know who they are, who know where they live ... that are talking to them and making them uncomfortable doing criminal activity," Martin said.
Martin says low staffing levels are making that kind of proactive policing a challenge.
Bailey has faith in the community though to step up and put an end to this violence.
"We're not monsters," she said. "We don't have to behave like this."
WCCO asked, but MPD did not say whether investigators believe the four recent shootings are gang-related.
