One year ago this evening, Minneapolis Police answered a disturbance call of a woman playing her radio loudly in the 3100 block of Hennepin Avenue South. What ensued over the next fifteen minutes after their arrival on the scene ought to sober and sadden all of us who live in this city. Barbara Schneider was a 49 year old recent cancer survivor and a long time social activist and scholar. She was also a woman afflicted with bi-polar disorder who had been off her medication for some time and who was suffering paranoid delusions at the time. Six officers wholly unprepared to confront and defuse the situation facing them, first, kicked in her front door after filling her one bedroom apartment with pepper spray through a space between the jamb and chain latched door and then, having invaded her abode, kicked down her bedroom door in an attempt to subdue this terribly frightened woman. With six officers packed into the small apartment they began tripping over one another, panicked, and shot her eight times in the chest and head as she held a knife of indeterminate size(we still have not seen the knife)and moved toward them in self defense. Barbara Schneider most likely was not holding a knife prior to the arrival of the police. She had retreated to her bedroom when the irritant had been sprayed into her apartment, knife in hand. In the county prosecutor's report, one of the officers outside her front door before it had been broken down, said to his partner, "She's got a knife" and "she's crazy." By the time the police shot Barbara Schneider they knew exactly with what they were dealing but were unprepared to pursue a proper course to serve and protect Barbara. In news accounts following the tragedy, the second such killing of a mentally ill person within eight months, Police Chief Olson, when asked about police procedures in dealing with the mentally ill and the successful program of crisis intervention in Memphis, stated that he had just such an idea in mind when this tragedy occurred. And yet it took over six more months and another shooting of a mentally ill person for the Chief of Police to act. Tonight at 7pm there will be a comemmorative service for Rocco Dandrea, Barbara Schneider and Alfred(Abuka) Sanders at First Unitarian Society at 900 Mount Curve Avenue in Minneapolis. The ecumenical service will last one hour and will be followed by refreshments and an opportunity to talk quietly and explore more ways to keep the spirit of the service alive. Please join us. Let us make sure that these stolen lives were not taken from us in vain. Tim Connolly Friends of Barbara Schneider Foundation __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
