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CNN Live Today

Interview with Cyndi Barrington

Aired August 23, 2002 - 11:10   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: I want to tell you about another conflict. This one erupted with police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was after an errant police bullet triggered a clash with angry neighbors. It all started with a pit bull being turned loose on police, but when an officer fired on the dog, the bullet ricocheted, and it struck a ten-year-old boy in the arm.
Dozens of angry neighbors converged on the officers, and then turned on a city bus and also a news van that had 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.

On the phone right now with us is Cyndi Barrington. She is the public information officer from the Minneapolis Police Department -- Ms. Barrington, thank you for joining us. What can you tell us about what took place, how the situation got out of control?

CYNDI BARRINGTON, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER, MPD: Well, it all started with a high-risk narcotics search warrant, and the reason this was deemed a high-risk search warrant is we had information -- one, that there were guns in this house; two, it is a problem address that is known for criminal activity; and we also knew that there was an individual inside that had threatened to kill police officers in the past. So, based on that information, we utilized our high-risk warrant team to go into the house and render it safe before the search warrant was executed.

When officers rolled up on the house, there was a man standing outside with a leashed pit bull. The officers got out of the van, and one officer ordered this man to hang on to that dog. At that time, the man unleashed the dog. As the dog charged and attacked our police officer, he had to make the choice and stop the threat.

When he fired at the dog, a bullet ricocheted off of the sidewalk and struck a 10 or 11-year-old boy, I believe, that lives at that home.

And I can't reiterate enough that the 10-year-old boy, as well as everyone else that was around this area, no one was in the line of fire. Only that dog. It is a very unfortunate situation where a bullet ricocheted off and struck this boy in his forearm.

KAGAN: Let me stop you right there, because we do have some sound from the father of that boy who was hit in the arm, so let's listen to that and then I will bring you back. Here is the father of the boy who was hit in the arm by that ricocheted bullet. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I talked to my wife, and she told me my son told her that he came out the door -- when he came out the door, the police shot the dog, then they turned around and they shot him.

QUESTION: So your son says -- what he told his wife was that the police intentionally turned around and shot him. He wasn't hit by a ricochet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The dog -- when he opened the door, the dog rushed out the door. They shot the dog. Then they turned around...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: Ms. Barrington, it sounds -- from that sound, that -- the father of the son or a bystander, they believe that the police intentionally shot the boy.

BARRINGTON: Absolutely not. Our high-risk entry team is trained for these type of situations. They are very skilled at what they do, and as a police department that is out there trying to curb drug activity, illegal activity on the street, we would never intentionally shoot anyone, especially a child that is in the area. They are trained, when they are going to use their weapon, to assess the situation and their surroundings.

I know for a fact that there has been other shootings that we have been involved in, where they have had to make the decision to use a shotgun or another weapon, and they have not done it because it might have hurt someone in the area, so I definitely can understand any father, any parent's concern in a serious situation like this, but again, this was a very unfortunate accident where a bullet that was intended for this pit bull that was trying to attack our officer ricocheted off the ground and struck this boy.

KAGAN: And meanwhile, before this whole situation resolved, it spiraled even more out of control. We had a chance in the last hour to talk to one of the reporters from the newspaper in town who was attacked, just one of, I think, a couple of reporters who were attacked by this mob.

BARRINGTON: It turned into a very volatile situation. I personally was whisked away by two members of our emergency response team and put in the back of a squad car. It just continued to escalate, and the media was not able to get out of a two-block radius. As you said, David Chanen and Howie Padilla from our "Star Tribune," our paper here were seriously assaulted. I know for one, received a concussion, broken nose, his teeth have been broken as well. Numerous news vehicles were damaged. One car, in fact, was destroyed, it was a car arson. A city bus was damaged, people's homes were damaged. It just continued to escalate, and they turned their anger in this situation, it appears, on the news media that were out at the scene.

KAGAN: And so where does the situation in this neighborhood go from here?

BARRINGTON: Well, it is calm now. Everything ramped down last night, I would say, around midnight Central Time. We are going to continue to monitor the area. We are going to continue to reach out to these neighborhood groups and people in the community in trying to get the truth out there of exactly what happened and see if we can continue to try to build some of the positive relationships in these communities so these type of things don't escalate into a violent situation as it did last night.

KAGAN: We wish you well with those efforts. Cyndi Barrington from the Minneapolis Police Department. Thank you for joining us.

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