July 26, 1999
Police barricade a section of park land bound by Minnehaha Creek, Hiawatha Avenue and 46th Street as three tree workers begin work. MnDOT won support for this phase of the project by promising the park board no more than two trees would be removed. Over thirty trees were destroyed in the next two days. Most of the nine arrests were of protesters peacefully assembled across the street as police repeatedly forced their way into the crowd and cuffed anyone who was unable to get out of their way.
(from Southside Pride article Highway 55 reroute construction begins by Leo Cashman:) "A cop tackled me and threw his entire body weight on me. My leg got twisted and my hip popped out of its socket", [Madeline Gardner, age 17] said. She was carried on a stretcher into an ambulance, but the ambulance did not leave the site for about an hour. She did not get adequate medical care until about four hours after her arrest and injury according to members of her family.
"When the hip gets dislocated, that can cut off circulation," she said she was told by medical personnel. Because it wasn't put back in place within an hour, there is a 30 percent chance of the bone dying, the family was advised; if the bone dies, that would require a hip replacement.
The doctor who attended to Madeline commented upon seeing her wound that he had never seen a hip injury that severe outside of a head-on collision.
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