There's Death on the Block, There's Hope in Congress

Abstract

rawaCr CAN'T imagine the state of horror experienced by Abigail Patton as she was throwing her four children g out of her second floor apartment window. The newspaper account couldn't capture the emotional trauma except by detailing the string of facts surrounding the s c A duplex fire. On October 25, i986 the fire broke out at I:00 A.M. Saturday in the first floor of a two story duplex on Knox Avenue North in Minneapolis. The eight killed in the first floor apartment were children at ages 7, 5, 4, 3 and i and adults at ages z6, z3 and zz. Before Abigail jumped, she tossed her children ages 6, 3-year-old twins, and i i months to Lamont Chatman, a neighbor. Abigail and two of her children suffered fractured bones due to the zo-foot drop. The St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch interviewed Chatman. "'It's sad,' Chatman said of the fire and its effect on the Knox Avenue neighborhood. 'There's death on the block ..."' The fire deaths on the block were caused by a cigarette. The fire was preventable.