Woman shielding her granddaughter hurt in shooting, along with her son

By the time the shooting started, Catherine Johnson had made her move, plucking her 2-year-old granddaughter from a crowd fighting near her St. Paul home. And then came the shots.

By ANTHONY LONETREE, Star Tribune

Last update: May 16, 2008 - 10:25 AM

By the time the shooting started Wednesday night, Catherine Johnson had made her move, plucking her 2-year-old granddaughter from a crowd fighting near her St. Paul home.

And then came the shots, four to six of them, police said.

"I threw her on the porch and I jumped on top of her," Johnson, 49, recalled Thursday.

But it wasn't until the shooting stopped that she felt "something hot" in her right leg. The grandmother realized then that she'd been shot.

Johnson's 18-year-old son also was shot, also struck in the leg.

But as she stood on crutches outside her Dayton's Bluff home on Thursday, Johnson said she was thankful that her granddaughter, playing on the sidewalk nearby, was safe.

She was happy to learn, too, that the suspected gunman was in custody.

Police arrested a 28-year-old Maplewood man a short time after the 6:30 p.m. shooting, about four blocks from the scene.

With the help of a police dog, investigators retraced his steps to recover a semiautomatic handgun, police spokesman Peter Panos said.

Panos said it was not yet known why the suspect had fired into the crowd, which was gathered on the 700 block of Conway Street.

Johnson's son was just a bystander, Panos added.

Leneal Frazier, 27, whose mother lives next door to Johnson, and who saw the gunman shoot, speculated that he was just "showing off, trying to be hard."

But the suspect was "soft," Frazier added. A real man would fight with his fists, he said.

The suspect, who has yet to be charged, has a criminal record that includes convictions for marijuana possession, crack-cocaine sales and fleeing a police officer.

Thursday afternoon, standing outside her house, Johnson said the bullet passed through her lower right leg without hitting a bone.

Johnson said she didn't see the gunman, who Panos and Frazier said had fired into the crowd from across the street.

The shooting, Johnson said, was "crazy." Kids are playing outside in the area all the time, she said, and now she was worried and may have to move.

"My granddaughter is just a baby," she added, pausing, then looking at the ground. "My life -- I would've given it to her."

Anthony Lonetree • 651-298-1545

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