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Cops: Boy Found Hanging From Clothesline In Mpls. Dies

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The 9-year-old boy who was found hanging from a clothesline in the back yard of an abandoned home in north Minneapolis died Monday evening, according to police.

Neighbors had found the boy hanging from a wire that was attached to this clothesline in the 3200 block of Bryant Avenue North on Thursday.

Kids in the McKinley neighborhood use the backyard of the abandoned house on Bryant Avenue North as a short cut between blocks.

Ethel Bonner was in her back yard directly across the alley from the abandoned house.

"So, I look this way and I see a little kid," Bonner said. "I kind of jogged over this way and as I'm looking I thought he was laying against the pole like a little sad kid, but as I got closer I saw that he was hanging from the rope."

Bonner said she took a deep breath and the training she is getting as a nursing student took over.

"When I came over, his feet were kind of crossed like this and he was just kind of limp this like. I had to kind of lift him and get the rope off his neck. His pulse was very, very faint when I got him off the rope," Bonner said.

Bonner then laid the boy down and called for help. Her sister ran over and started CPR.

Police and paramedics were there in minutes.

Now, neighbors have lots of questions, questions police hope they will have the answers to soon.

"Investigators today are reaching out to other children that were in the neighborhood at the time and had been playing with this little boy throughout the day we don't know if they were with him when this happened there are a lot of unknowns," Minneapolis police spokesperson Cyndi Barrington said.

Neighbors said the victim was visiting family here in Minneapolis from Georgia. They said he is a polite young man who has been in the neighborhood for a couple of weeks.

Police said they will not speculate about what happened until they finish talking with other kids who were last seen playing with the boy.

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