A woman shot and wounded in a vehicle in St. Paul had her 2-year-old daughter in the backseat at the time, according to an attempted murder charge filed this week against a 17-year-old.
Two bullets went in the door where the toddler was sitting and she narrowly missed being injured, said her mother, Tyra Rogers, who is still recovering from her injuries from the June shooting.
"I went into immediate mom mode," Rogers said Thursday. "Even though I was shot, I was trying to call out her name and make sure she was OK. I couldn't turn my body around to check, and she wasn't crying, screaming or anything so I was scared that maybe she got hit."
Rogers had gone to pick up her mother from Born's Bar in St. Paul's North End late June 13.
As her mother left the Rice Street bar, she was in a fight with two other women, according to the juvenile petition in the case, which charges the 17-year-old son of one of the women from the fight in the shooting.
Rogers said she saw a woman point at her vehicle and she didn't want any trouble, so she told her, "Hey, I have my daughter in the car, I have my daughter in the car," but another vehicle pulled alongside and someone opened fire.
Rogers, who called 911, was shot twice in the leg, three times in the back and twice in her stomach. She was hospitalized from June 13 to June 23, and needed surgery on her stomach -- "they took all my intestines out and reconstructed them," she said.
She said she was later readmitted to the hospital because she couldn't eat and was throwing up her stomach lining.
"I'm still learning every day to get back to myself," said Rogers, of Roseville. She said she's tried to work, but almost collapsed as she was mopping at a gas station and couldn't stay at the job because it was too much for her body. She has a GoFundMe for her expenses.
Rogers didn't know the suspects and, before the 17-year-old and his mother were recently arrested, she said she was "on edge."
"I still don't go out, I don't do anything outdoors where I could be running into a big group of people anymore," she said. "I'm too anxious."
Police identified the two women who were in the fight and saw in surveillance videos that they'd been at two bars earlier in the evening. A son of one of the women had been driving them around, the other woman said, according to the petition.
The Ramsey County Attorney's Office charged the 17-year-old's mother with aiding an offender.
Investigators interviewed the 45-year-old mother on Tuesday and asked her about a large scar by her eye. She said she was assaulted at Born's Bar but hadn't reported it because she was fearful. She said she couldn't remember anything after the assault.
The woman told police that she and her friend took an Uber to Born's and hadn't been to any other bars, the criminal complaint said. When investigators told her she was seen on video getting into a vehicle, she said she didn't know whose car she got into.
The 17-year-old told police he didn't know why he'd been arrested.
When shown a picture of his mom's eye injury, he stated he was "mad as hell" looking at the picture. He said he hadn't driven his mother to the bar. Police showed the teen a still image from video of him sitting at a different bar in St. Paul and he ended the interview, the petition against him said.