A little over a month after I moved in, George Floyd was killed just down the street. When I found out, I was devastated.
My mind broke.
We'd had so many officer killings in the last few years of unarmed black men that it was my very last hope, my last bit of trust in Minneapolis Police gone. He kneeled on him until he was dead with a smirk on his face and his hands in his pockets.
When I was a child, I had been choked to unconsciousness as a "game" my torturer played. I was abused and neglected and tortured for years and never treatment for it despite trying to find the right program.
The game was to choke me until I was unconscious and I won if I never passed out, but of course, I always passed out, I was just a little girl. And when I was unconscious, I'd be burned with whatever was handy to try again.
When I saw the video of George Floyd's murder, I was right back in that moment of powerlessness. I lost my sense of gravity. I had to do something.
I heard there was going to be a protest at the police station about 10 blocks away on Lake Street. I lived at Lake Street and Chicago Avenue. George was killed just south of me on Chicago Ave.. I made a sign that said "Protect and Serve Everyone" and "Do Good."
As I got closer, I saw people with their arms full, then people with shopping cars full, and I came into the Target parking lot and saw people stuffing cars with stuff. They'd been looting.
I started to tell them that this didn't have anything to do with George, that stealing and tearing up the neighborhood wouldn't help things. I was threatened by many people.
I started to tell them that this didn't have anything to do with George, that stealing and tearing up the neighborhood wouldn't help things. I was threatened by many people.
When I went around the corner, I realized I was right by the door where people were leaving with looted goods. There was an exit door at the top of a platform that had stairs on one side and a ramp on the other. I parked my wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs. This was not for George, this was just stealing! This was our neighborhood and it was already on fire and these people, my neighbors had lost sight of something very important. Immediately I was being attacked by people on the ground waiting to receive the loot and people on the platform were hitting my face and chest with the shopping carts.
I went up the ramp and started blocking the door from above so the people on the ground couldn't hurt me. They started throwing things at my head. Mostly canned food that had been dumped by looters. About 5 different people came and punched me in the face multiple times. I was choked against the headrest on my chair so many times, I popped open my knife and nicked the arm of the white woman as she was trying to choke me with her scarf to get her to stop.
I carry a knife when I'm in my wheelchair. It was becoming a necessity.
See:
See:
A few years ago, groups of teens started attacking people randomly on the street. It started with business people outdoors on their lunch breaks talking on their cell phones, then they'd follow people running or walking and block them into a spot with their car and rob them. It became disorganized and anyone was a threat. Two thirteen year olds robbed a man waiting at a light rail station, took his wallet and his phone and then flipped his wheelchair and he couldn't get up to find help.
So I bought a knife and a wrist band from the camping store. My hands aren't great, my fingers are weak and I often drop things, so I bought a knife that folds up to fit in my right hand when it's closed, it had a spring on the blade so I could open it with my thumb and the wrist band held it in case I dropped it or let go. Anytime I was going to be around a crowd or in public transportation, I had it tucked in my right hand - my driving hand for my wheelchair. I can't use the knife and drive, but I had it just in case.
So I bought a knife and a wrist band from the camping store. My hands aren't great, my fingers are weak and I often drop things, so I bought a knife that folds up to fit in my right hand when it's closed, it had a spring on the blade so I could open it with my thumb and the wrist band held it in case I dropped it or let go. Anytime I was going to be around a crowd or in public transportation, I had it tucked in my right hand - my driving hand for my wheelchair. I can't use the knife and drive, but I had it just in case.
Knox Landing, where I lived in Bloomington, MN was the last stop for a bus line that went into Minneapolis and made connections. My doctors were in the city, I loved restaurants, and museums and people watching. That meant that I would always have to go to downtown Minneapolis to catch a ride home on the bus, in my wheelchair and witnessed plenty of crime just waiting for the bus.
I appreciate my wheelchair. I love it. It has given me so much freedom, but it also restricts me a lot. It's like steering a shopping cart - all the wheels have to be facing the right direction to go in that direction. I always wear the seatbelt because even the curb cutouts for wheelchairs are sometimes too steep and though my chair has safety measure to keep it from tipping forward, if I'm not belted in, I'll fall out. Since my chair has a full back rest and neck rest, I'm not able to turn my body and my peripheral vision is limited. It's scary. It scares me that someone can get behind me and hurt me. I can't do much with a pocket knife, but if anyone gets so close to me that I can reach them with my arm (not very far when belted into a seat) I could do whatever possible to defend myself and it worked this one time I decided to use it.
I'm at Target trying to block looters from leaving Target with their loads of stuff. I'm at one door, there are a dozen emergency exits at the store plus the front doors are open. I decided I'd block it with myself and my wheelchair and remind people of George.
This wasn't taken well and I was beat badly by several who made body contact with me directly - slapping, punching, kicking, strangling, etc. and those from a distance who took game at seeing who could throw something and hit me.
I was knocked unconscious several times while being beaten. In some of the videos, I see myself trying to leave, but my wheelchair is set at the fastest speed (people kept grasping for the controls) and the wheels were turned different ways, so I'd have to swing it around to get the wheels right to leave and someone would get in front of me or hit me and I couldn't get out.
When I slashed the arm of the woman who was choking me with her scarf a woman up front (black woman with her hair up, black clothes, red t-shirt) started yelling "she stabbing people" over and over and the crowd went crazy. People who were in the parking lot watching came to get me. I was knocked out again and had my head in my lap. I came to and she was still yelling "she stabbin people! she stabbin people! she got a knife!" and I turned my head and slurred "I'm not afraid of you." She ran around the crowd, came up behind me and punched me in the back of the head right before someone sprayed me in the face with a fire extinguisher. She's the one in black with the red t-shirt on seen punching the back of my head in the videos.
There are SO many clips on the internet. Honestly, I stay away from them because they are too upsetting, but I found one to show you. While this was going on video of it was being uploaded to the internet, edited and commentated on. It was in the NY Post, one of the London newspapers and on on every social medial platform I can think of. With so many people commenting, the story went wild within minutes of it being posted.
This package of videos shows things out of order, but you get the idea.
First I was a white senior citizen with a steak knife that snuck into a peaceful crowd (looting target) to stab black people - as many as I could. Then I was a 20 something on a stolen shopping scooter out to stab black lives matters people, to being "that white bitch in the wheelchair who lives around here who has been stabbing black people."
Not only was it going around on individual web pages, publications picked it up, it became a Twitter flash, social media companies picked it up, even a paper in London picked it up. I think the only reason it didn't get more attention was because the rioters burned down the police station and two post offices.
I encountered the woman I cut at the ER. She was with police. I started shouting about what she had done to me. Apparently she was in the process of making a report against me. I was questioned by police, she was questioned again. She was arrested. I still had the strangle marks on my neck from the scarf she was wearing. The police knew who I was because of the chaos at Target being so close to their police station.
Since I had been exposed to mace, pepper spray or anything like it, hospital staff wouldn't let me in the ER. Instead I had to strip naked in the ambulance garage inside a tent full of sprinklers with cold water then I had to lie on a table while 2 male nurses in biohazard suits scrubbed me down with long handles brooms. I started to collapse from the cold and the shock. They put me in the ER where my head was stapled closed and I was sent home with instructions on how to take care of a severe concussion.
I didn't leave until about 5a. I live alone. No one to take care of me but me.
We still weren't safe. The next day I found out that many people had tried to break the windows of the Midtown Exchange building and set the market on fire. The Family Dollar on 10th Ave was burned and collapsed and the USBank just kitty-corner was smoldering, but it seemed people would comeback and dump more fuel on it. They never got it to burn down all the way.
I tried to find out about breaking my lease with Midtown Exchange.
