Minn. Principal Says She Can't Take It Anymore After 17 YO Gunned Down By Another Youth, Murders SKYROCKET After Police Defunded

North High School Principal Mauri Melander Friestleben stood on the corner of N. Dowling and N. Fremont avenues Tuesday, a day after a 17-year-old Minneapolis Public Schools student was shot and killed there, and said she was "100% over it."

"We literally are in a city right now that is completely and entirely out of control. I just have to absolutely say it the way I feel it," Friestleben said on a Facebook Live video broadcast from the North High School account. "It feels like when I walk into a classroom where the teacher has given up."

Minneapolis has seen a spike in gun violence and other violent crimes since the spring. So far this year, 382 people have been shot — the most in 15 years — and 59 homicides have been recorded. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Police Department's 911 call response times have slowed, and their approach to crime is less proactive, city records show.

In the Facebook Live video, Friestleben shared frustrations that her students can't return to school while they see people in the community "doing whatever they want … and law enforcement drives right past."

"I have kids that so badly and so deeply want to be in school, they want to play their sports, they want to get in the weight room … and guess what? Because of COVID, they can't do anything," she said. "We're seeing blocks being taken over. People with substance abuse problems, chemical dependency issues, and they are just allowed to be how they want to be but my kids can't work out? It doesn't make any sense, and the kids know it doesn't make any sense."

Police aren't enforcing laws in her community, Friestleben said. She said she doesn't see officers patrolling anymore, and they don't step in when people drive through red lights and speed. Officers say that residents and city council members don't want them around, she said, but people in her neighborhood do.

"The people who are in my community need and want good law enforcement," she said. "We got kids on skateboards that are getting hit by cars, and nothing … We can't take it anymore."