A Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) leader has documented her “violent” and “terrifying” carjacking on social media.
Shivanthi Sathanandan, the state DFL’s second vice chair, wrote on Facebook that on 5 September she and her children were “violently car jacked in the driveway of our home in Minneapolis.”
She described the incident: Four “very young men” who were all armed with guns beat her “violently down to the ground” in front of her four-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. When her neighbours noticed what was going on and tried to help her, the assailants allegedly held them up at gunpoint — “all in broad daylight.”
Ms Sathanandan also posted a photo of her bloodied face, writing, “This is the face of a mother who just had the sh$t beaten out of her. A mother whose only thought was, ‘let me run far enough and fight hard enough so that my kids have a chance to get away.’”
Not only was the incident “terrifying,” she wrote, but she now suffers from “a broken leg, deep lacerations on my head, bruising and cuts all over my body.”
“And I have rage,” she added, accusing the men of having done this before and of knowing what they were doing. “Yet they are still on OUR STREETS. Killing mothers. Giving babies psychological trauma that a lifetime of therapy cannot erase. With no hesitation and no remorse,” she wrote.
“I’m now part of the statistics,” she continued. “I wasn’t silent when I fought these men to save my life and my babies, and I won’t be silent now. We need to get illegal guns off of our streets, catch these young people who are running wild creating chaos across our city and HOLD THEM IN CUSTODY AND PROSECUTE THEM.”
Her message got even more emotional. “You could have been reading the obituary for me and my children today. But instead I’m here. To write this., she added.
“Look at my face,” Ms Sathanandan wrote. “These criminals will not win. We need to take back our city. And this will not be the last you hear from me about this.”
She thanked Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, the police, paramedics and the community, one “that wraps us in love.”
According to the Minneapolis Police Department, no arrests have been made and the case remains open.
