SAGINAW, MI -- A Saginaw mother charged with felonious assault in connection with a Dec. 20 confrontation at a West Side park claims she is being treated as a criminal by police when she and her family are the victims.

Jennie Lindauer, 33, described the scene in an interview with MLive of the incident that led to her 12-year-old daughter being stabbed in the chest, painting herself and her daughters as victims.

Related: Girl, 12, stabbed in chest in fight that started online

"I was trying to get out of there," she said. "I was in fear for my life and my children's lives."

Saginaw Police Chief Bob Ruth tells a different version of events.

"She took them down there to fight," Ruth said. "Not the best parenting in the world."

He said the police investigation has uncovered a string of Facebook conversations involving Lindauer. Ruth said there was plenty of probable cause to arrest Lindauer on felonious assault charges.

"There are other things that happened," he said. "I just can't get into it. It's an active investigation. But there's a reason why she was arrested.

"There was more than enough probable cause to arrest the mother that took the child down there to fight."

According to Lindauer, her daughters and some friends were at a skating rink in Saginaw Township on Dec. 20 and left for a restaurant because a group of girls at the rink were "talking stuff."

On the way, she said, her 16-year-old daughter asked her mom to stop at a park on Saginaw's West Side, where she pulled up to see four males and a female, her older daughter's friend.

Soon after her older teenage daughter got out of the vehicle, Lindauer said a young male punched the teen twice, once in the jaw and again in the eye, sending her to the ground. Lindauer said she got out of the car and another male grabbed her hair, slammed her to the ground and "knocked me out."

When she came to, she said, she remembers asking her 12-year-old daughter, Ariella, to hand her mace from her purse.

Jennie Lindauer and her daughter, Ariella.

"Mom, I can't breathe," Lindauer remembers hearing her daughter saying. The mother saw the 12-year-old's shirt soaked in blood.

Police have confirmed that a 12-year-old girl suffered a non-life-threatening stab wound to the chest.

Lindauer said the family escaped by getting back into the van, and the mother sped off. At a Saginaw hospital, Ariella got three stitches and two butterfly stitches, her mom said.

While they were there, police arrested Lindauer. She was later arraigned on two counts of felonious assault and was released on a $7,500 cash/surety 10 percent bond per count, court records show.

Lindauer said she is accused of trying to hit people on the road with her vehicle. She said she sped "backwards, in reverse, down Michigan to try to get away."

"They were going to hurt us," she said, adding that one of the males held up a gun as she sped away.

Ruth declined to give any more details about the incident in the interest of protecting the ongoing investigation, but he said he expects more information will be presented at Lindauer's upcoming court hearings.

He expressed dismay that a mother would play a role that police believe Lindauer played in the Dec. 20 incident.

"You don't take your kids on a Facebook dare to fight," Ruth said. "You just don't do it."

Police ask anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-422-JAIL.

Mark Tower covers local government for MLive/The Saginaw News. Contact him at 989-284-4807, by email at mtower@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.