Little Earth: The Troubles

Another accusation of police misconduct reopens the old rift between cops and residents at south Minneapolis's Little Earth housing complex

A A A Comments By G.R. Anderson Jr. Wednesday, Jul 26 2006

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St. Clair-Jones got involved in a gang at Little Earth, but got out a few years ago, he says, because he has two children now. Tonight he's "smoked a couple fatties" and plans to chill at home with his family. He recalls an incident last summer when his children, who are seven and nine, were sleeping in the front room of their apartment with some of their cousins. At about 4:00 a.m., St. Clair-Jones says, a gunshot blew out the window, and glass shattered all over the kids.

"I pulled the slug out of the wall, and it looked like a .357," he says, adding that he learned later it was a gang shooting gone awry. "I wrapped the thing in a bag and took it to the police station. The cop just looked at me and threw it in the garbage."

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He motions toward a gathering of teenagers nearby who are swilling from a bottle of brandy. "It was probably one of those guys," he says.

Two of them are from Little Earth originally, though they now live in Roseville. They both look to be about 17, and they come to Little Earth to party on the weekends.

"I had to get out of here," one of them explains without any hint of irony. Pretty soon he and rest of the group drift off into the recesses of the clusters of apartments, looking for a party where there's booze.

A little while later they reappear nearby, not far from where Vinnie is cradling her niece. "I have an uncle in Lincoln, Nebraska," she says wistfully, prompted by nothing in particular. Right now she's taking classes to become a nurse. "I have to get out of here, as soon as I can," she says. "These projects are no good." 