Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Police Tensions in Minneapolis

Aired August 23, 2002 - 10:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Want to tell you about a conflict that erupted in Minneapolis. It was after an errant police bullet triggered a clash of angry neighbors. This all started with a pitbull being turned loose on police. But when an officer fired on the dog, the bullet actually ricocheted and struck a 10-year-old boy if the arm. Well, dozens of angry neighbored converged on the officers and then turned on a city bus and a news van that moved in. Both vehicles were damaged and two newspaper reporters suffered minor injuries. The boy who was accidentally shot is being treated for non-life threatening injuries.
We have a chance to talk with David Chanen. He is a reporter with "The Minneapolis Star Tribune," and apparently, this crowd also went and attacked reporters on the scene, and David Chanen was one of them. He is with us on the phone right now.

David, good morning.

Are you with us, David, Chanen? Hello? OK. If you could speak up a little bit.

DAVID CHANEN, REPORTER, "MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE": Sure.

KAGAN: If you could tell us exactly what happened at this incident. How did you end up coming to the story, and what was the story you were going to cover?

CHANEN: Well, we had already had a reporter at the scene. Like you said, there was a police were going to be searching -- doing a search warrant of a drug house. When they arrived there, the folks that lived there, they unleashed a pitbull, which went after the officers. They shot at the dog, and the bullet ricocheted and hit a 10-year-old child.

I had been home for the evening, but the reporters at scene were saying that things looked like they were getting pretty crazy there, and he was hoping that I could come out there and help him, help do reporting.

KAGAN: So you went to cover a story, like I'm sure you have done thousands of times. How did this situation get out of control, and how did you yourself end up being a victim of I guess what apparently turned into a riot?

CHANEN: Yes, I parked about two blocks away from where maybe 200 people had gathered at the house. I kind of stood back, kind of surveyed what was going on, hadn't approached anybody, didn't have a notebook out. The other reporter who was there, he found me, crossed the street, started talking just briefly.

It looked as though things were getting a little more rowdy. People were throwing bottles in the street. The officers left the scene, because they didn't want to heighten any tension that was going on there, and I was literally walking back towards my car, because I was feeling a little uncomfortable and was going to move it, when there was a group of seven or eight people who started would walking toward me, and they were speeding up, and then I realized they were coming right at me. And they knocked me down to the ground, hitting me in the head, kicking me in the head, all over my body and legs.

KAGAN: Were they saying anything to you at the time.

CHANEN: I couldn't really hear anything. I could one of them was just laughing when he was hitting me. The only thing I could hear was my fellow reporter saying, hey, back off him, and I don't know if that stopped them or if they were done doing what they wanted to do, but at that point, I had curled up basically into a ball on the street, and they stopped. One of the guys who was hitting me, picked me up, said, get in your car and get the hell out of here. I had lost my glasses. I couldn't see where I was driving.

KAGAN: But I imagine you got out anyway.

CHANEN: I did drive out, but unfortunately, at the point where this reporter had told them to stop hitting me, they went after him, and they hit him several times, they chipped his teeth. He has got a black eye, a broken nose.

KAGAN: What about your condition? What kind of injuries did you sustain?

CHANEN: My nose, I've got some damage tissues. I've got a small broken bone in my elbow. I've a huge bruises near my kidneys, big, big cuts all over my legs, bumps on my head. I've had better days.

KAGAN: Yes, I would think so.

I am going to ask to you play reporter here for a second and step back and give us a perspective, is this a situation, kind of like a powder keg that's been waiting to explode maybe in this neighborhood?

CHANEN: Well, there's been some incidents brewing this summer. There was an officer earlier this month who was killed by a 60-year- old woman. It was in a public housing project, and then there was about a week after that, there was another police involved shooting, where the community was claiming it was not justified at all. So it seems there had been protests all along, and not necessarily in this particular neighborhood, but in this scene, like things in the black community in Minneapolis were just starting to heat up. And what triggered it last night to go over the edge, I just don't know.

KAGAN: Let me just ask you, because we can't see you since we are talking on the phone, are you white?

CHANEN: Yes, I am. KAGAN: And do you think that's one of the reasons you were targeted during this?

CHANEN: Well, I don't know. I know the other reporter told me before I arrived at the scene, that he heard groups of people saying that they were looking for white people. I don't know, you know if that meant once they saw me, that was it, because he's Hispanic. So I don't know. I'm fearing that might be the case. But I hope not.

KAGAN: And for you, I guess some time off to mend?

CHANEN: Yes, I'll be taking today off. Pretty shocking. I'm angry. I'm sad that this had to happen. I have been a reporter for almost 10 years. I have covered police nearly five years. And never once -- I have been in all kind of situations, and I've never had a hand laid on me. I must have miscalculated this particular situation.

KAGAN: I know the feeling that as reporters we often go into dangerous situations, and sometimes it's naive, but we go with the feeling that somehow -- we are not actually part of the danger that we might actually be covering.

CHANEN: Exactly. That's kind of the attitude I went in, like it never happened before, I can't imagine. Even when they were coming after me, I thought maybe they were just trying to scare me a little bit, make me run away, but then when they were grabbing me and throwing me down to the ground.

KAGAN: Do you think this will effect how do you your job in the future?

CHANEN: I hope not. I have thought about that a lot the past 24 hours. I guess I won't know until I go out to the next scene.

KAGAN: We wish you well. We wish you a speedy recovery, and thank you for taking time off on a difficult day to tell us from the inside what happened there in that Minneapolis neighborhood.

Appreciate it. David Chanen with the "Minneapolis Star Tribune."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com