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Woman run down chasing robber
Woman run down chasing robber
As her son and others young and old watched in horror, a 62-year-old woman was run down Saturday afternoon at a south Minneapolis gasoline station. Witnesses said Evelyn Geng had chased a robber who had snatched her $50 bill. She then tried to block his escape, only to be hit by a getaway driver.
Police officers rushed to the scene and tried to save Geng, but she was pronounced dead at Hennepin County
r
Medical Center.
Police had made no arrests by Saturday evening, though they had a strong lead and "great evidence," said Lt. Lee Edwards.
Geng, a grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of one, lived only a mile away.
It was the city's 39th homicide this ye
ar, and the latest in a string of brazen slayings this week. They include two men shot at a construction office and another man slain in a parking ramp.
Geng's son, Richard Cooper, said his mother had tried to stand up for herself during the incident at the Motomart gas station on Hiawatha Avenue at E. 33rd Street. Cooper said the man snatched her money and a bottle of Pepsi as she stood in line inside the station. Cooper was pumping gasoline into her car as the episode unfolded.
Geng chased the robber to the pu
mps
, yelling at him as he got into a car's back seat. She stood in front of the car, demanding that he return the goods, Cooper said.
When he realized what was happening, Cooper said, he yanked open the suspects' rear passenger door. Inside were four women and the male robber, he said. The suspects' car had backed up nearly to the gas station building. Two women switched positions i
n the front seat, and the new driver put the car into gear, Cooper said.
"They started going forward, and she was trying to get out of the way, and she went down right under both passenger tires -- the full length of her body, all the way from her leg and up to the side of her face."
The suspects drove off, leaving Geng dying.
"Officer Valerie Goligowski tried valiantly to save the victim's life by performing CPR on her," Edwards said.
Unlike so many crime scenes, when reluctant witnes
ses dis
appear, those at this scene quickly came forward to help police.
"They were just as appalled as we were," Edwards said.
Among the witnesses were a boy and girl with their mother and father. They gave statements to investigators. The family appeared stunned and sickened as they stepped around yellow crime-scene tape and got into their car.
"It was a hit-and-run," the mother said, cupping her palm over her mouth and shaking her head.
The homicide unfolded on one of the city
's busiest thoroughfares, within view of the Hiawatha light-rail line and thousands of cars crawling by in a construction zone on Hiawatha Avenue.
A shocking crime
Police spokesman Ron Reier said that he often gets calls about killings committed with guns and knives, but that this one made him cry. This was a woman, he said, who was struck down doing what we all do -- simply standing in line to pay for her gasoline.
"Murders are bad," Reier said. &qu
ot;Shooting
s are bad. But when you go to a gas station on a Saturday afternoon at 20 minutes to 1, number one, you're not expecting to be robbed. And number two, you're not expecting to be murdered. That's beyond the realm of comprehension."
Saturday afternoon, officers collected surveillance camera film and reconstructed the hit-and-run scene, where Geng's white sneakers and purple clothing remained in the parking lot.
The station where she was run down is well-known to police as a frequent site of drive-offs, in which people drive off
without paying for their gasoline. Police have said they expect that such conduct will increase as gas prices soar and hit the poorest harder than anyone.
Ron Edwards, a civic leader who serves on the Police Community Relations Council, said the hit-and-run in broad daylight is symptomatic of bigger problems. It's part of a pattern of violence that has been predicted to sweep through the city, and not
as much becaus
e of gangs and guns but because of economic desperation, he said.
Phuk this azzhole.â┚¬Ã…¡ÃƒÆ’”�šÃ”š It is symptomatic of the fact Minneaplic is being over run my sub-human elememts.
"Whatever it was for, she didn't deserve to die," Ron Edwards said. "It's frightening."
Lt. Lee Edwards of the homicide unit said the death of an innocent woman for the cash in her hand was as tragic a case as he's seen.
"It wasn't enough to lose your life over," he said, then went back to the crime scene.
Saturday night, Geng's granddaughter, Mary Almeida of St.
Paul, lit candles, and with other family members prayed for Geng, a lively and loving woman who had a job working with computers.
"She was so young," Almeida said. "I would have always thought that she'd go in her sleep, in her dreams, of natural causes. I would have never thought something like this would happen to h
er."<!--QuoteE
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