Nov. 23, 2002: Stray bullet kills girl in her house

 A 12-year-old girl seated at her dining room table was killed Friday by a stray bullet that ripped through the wall of her duplex on a south Minneapolis block being reclaimed from drug dealers.  
 
The girl, identified by her aunt as Tyesha Edwards, was seated next to her 8-year-old sister when she was struck, Police Chief Robert Olson said. The shooting occurred shortly after 3 p.m. in 3400 block of Chicago Av. S., on the border of the Central and Powderhorn Park neighborhoods. 
 
An eyewitness said several people came from between houses across Chicago Av. and fired before running away. However, there was nothing to indicate that the home where the girl lived was the intended target, said Inspector Sharon Lubinski, head of the Police Department's Third Precinct.  

Tyesha, a sixth-grader at Banneker Community School, was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.  

Nobody had been arrested late Friday.  

A clearly angered Olson decried the slaying, calling the killers cowards who tragically stole the life of another Minneapolis child.  

"This is just another case of somebody shooting at somebody else they're mad at," he said. "What we need is somebody who saw something to come forward and help us catch these killers."  

Lubinski didn't know how many shooters there were, but a caller to 911 said there were at least six shots fired. Sally Stromquist, who lives in the 3400 block of Columbus Av. S., one block to the west, said she had just gotten home from her 13-year-old son's science fair when she heard the shots.  

"I had just laid down and started reading a book when I heard the shots," she said. "I shot right out of my bed and called 911." 

Recalling the rhythm of the shots, Stromquist said she heard about five but couldn't tell exactly where they came from because the noise seemed to ricochet off the buildings.  

City Council Member Gary Schiff said that the community has worked hard to clean up the neighborhood, but that there is one property - not where the girl lived - that has continued to be a problem.  

"These are newer homes that used to be either empty lots or problem properties that were brought down with new homes being built," he said.  

Michele Wiegand, executive director of the Powderhorn Residents Group, said the block was "dubbed crack avenue" before redevelopment efforts led by the Residents Group began in 1994.  

There was a homicide at E. 38th St. and Columbus Av. S. last month, followed by a "running gun battle" along Columbus the next week, Lubinski said. A shot was recently fired through the window of an area business, she said.

Some of the shootings have been gang-related, but Lubinski said she didn't know whether any were related to Friday's shooting.

Jimmy John, who works at nearby Toni's Market and Deli, said investigators stopped in and took surveillance tapes.  

The girl's family is devastated, Lubinski said.  

"This is a horrible shock," she said. "This is a good, decent, hard-working family. It's just an unimaginable loss."  

As Barbara Winborn, the girl's aunt, approached the rear of the house shortly before 5 p.m., she was still stunned by what a sister told her about her niece.  

"Is it true? Is it true?" Winborn asked aloud to anyone close. "Does anyone know what happened?"  


While taking a cell phone call, her knees slightly buckled, she briefly slumped over as another relative on the line told her that the girl died.    

A sweet girl  

"She was a very happy, sweet little girl," Winborn said. She said she last saw her niece last Wednesday at a community center. "She was into all kinds of activities there. She's never been in
trouble. Never."  

Pat Longs, a neighbor who lives on the same block as the little girl, said her phone at home rang constantly as family and friends called to check on her.  

"I've known that girl and her family since she was this high," Longs said, holding her hand down about knee-level. "Their family is very well-respected in this neighborhood. They're part of us and this hurts all of us.  

"I don't know why this happened."  

The girl is the fourth child since 1996 to be killed by a stray bullet in the Twin Cities area. In June, three gang members were convicted in the death of 4-year-old Davisha Brantley-Gillum. The girl and seven other women and children were in a car at a gas station at University and Hamline Avs. in St. Paul when three gunmen opened fire in 1996.  

Davisha's mother and another woman were wounded, and Davisha was killed by a bullet that struck her head. The women and children had just left a Rondo Days community celebration in St. Paul that had
been marred by fighting and shooting.  

Davisha was shot the same summer as Byron Phillips, 11, who was hit by a gang member's stray bullet in north Minneapolis while he sat on a porch. A billboard with Byron's photo helped bring forward a person with information that eventually sent three men to prison.  

Police still haven't solved the killing of Kevin Brewer, an 11-year-old from Brooklyn Park killed in 2000 by a stray bullet
while watching a fight near Cottage Park in the Jordan neighborhood in north Minneapolis. Police said that the park was filled with gang members that night.  

V.J. Smith, the founder of the Minneapolis nonprofit MAD DADS (Men Against Destruction/Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder), said Friday that the neighborhood now has to rally together to see that the killers of the 12-year-old girl are brought to justice.

A vigil will be held on the 3400 block of Chicago Av. S. at 5 p.m. today, he said.

"Unfortunately, this just shows us that there is still so much work left to do in our community," said Smith, who was leading his group's weekly neighborhood patrol in north Minneapolis Friday night. "There is no quick solution to this process, but this inexcusable violence has got to stop."  

Angie Pitel, a employee with the Reuben Lindh Family Services, which is a few doors north of the shooting, said she and others upstairs heard about six gunshots and a car screeching off around
3:30 p.m.  

"Usually it's quiet around here during the day," said Pitel as the entrance to the program that holds supervised parental visits was closed off by police tape. "There's drugs in the neighborhood, but it's not as much traffic around here like on Chicago and Lake (Street)."  

Anna Lochridge, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than six years, said it is rare that gunfire is even heard in the 3400 block, so she was stunned to hear that a child had been killed in broad daylight.  

Tina Gross, going to her aunt's house on the block, said her daughter was among up to five children playing nearby at the time of the shooting. 

"When I heard what happened, I just kept thinking that could have been my little girl," she said.  

As Felix Wemh stood at the intersection of Chicago Av. and E. 35th St., he said the shooting was a "sad sign of the times we live in."  

"Right around the holidays . . . that little girl won't be able to have Thanksgiving Day dinner and won't get a Christmas," he said. "But sadder than that is the people who shot her probably will."   .  

- Howie Padilla is at hpadilla@startribune.com.   - David Chanen is at dchanen@startribune.com.   - Terry Collins is at tcollins@startribune.com.   .