Brianna Lindell posted photographs and a video from the incident Tuesday. She was at the park with her partner where the boys were detained.
"Today at Minnehaha Falls cops drew guns on 4 black kids" Lindell wrote. "When my partner and I arrived the kids were being harassed by a young white guy, who appeared to be around 17 years old. He was spouting racial slurs at them and aggressing them with a metal trash can lid and saying he had a knife. A girl with him was on her phone, I'm assuming with police."
The boys were aged 13, 13, 14, and 16.
According to Lindell, other witnesses said that "both cops had jumped out of their cars, guns already drawn, with the guns right in the children's faces."
In the video, one of the boys is shirtless and handcuffed on on the ground. He can be heard repeatedly asking to put his shirt on as he was being bitten by mosquitos. "My partner tossed him his shirt and a cop jumped out of the squad car and started yelling at us that we were interfering with an arrest," Lindell wrote.
According to a statement from the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, an investigation has been opened into the validity of the 911 call. " The 911 caller reported four males holding knives and sticks," it says, adding that "the caller stated one suspect said he had a gun in his backpack." It adds that they were informed that the boyfriend of the person who called was being assaulted.
No weapons were found on the scene, however. "Witness accounts on the scene were inconsistent with the 911 callers account of the incident," the statement reads.
"One of the Park Police officers did unholster his firearm and point it in the general direction of the four suspects," the department said.
The officers were wearing body-worn cameras and the footage taken by them has been reviewed by Park Police Chief Jason Ohotto and Superintendent Mary Merrill, who are requesting an independent investigation of what happened to ensure that the department's policies, procedures, and state laws were abided by.
