Welcome to Murderapolis: The city is under siege and under policed

Balloons idle above the trampoline and flowers wilt on its surface. Trinity Ottoson-Smith was playing here May 15 when she was struck by a stray bullet.

The nine-years-old was caught in the crossfire of a shoot-out as gun-toting thugs drove along the alleyway behind her friend's house in this pretty neighborhood. She died last Thursday.

Trinity was the second child to be shot in Minneapolis in three weeks. Six-year-old Aniya Allen was shot May 17 and died the following day. She took a bullet to the head as she ate McDonald's in her mother's car. Ten-year-old LaDavionne Garrett Jr. was shot in the head while sitting in his parents' car April 30.

Welcome to Minneapolis, a city well on the way to eclipsing the violence that once saw it called Murderapolis. One year after the death of George Floyd saw this city become ground zero for the defund the police movement, its people are paying for it with their blood.