The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that police say they shot Clark after a “struggle with officers”. Witnesses at the scene said Clark was handcuffed and lying on the ground at the time of the shooting, which police have denied.
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The Black Lives Matter movement in Minneapolis are say they have plans for a “mass occupation” today at 5 p.m. ET.
A growing crowd of at least 250 people, joining arms and partially surrounding the precinct, chanted slogans including, “Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail”, and, “Handcuffs, don’t shoot”.
They have continued outside of the Minneapolis 4th precinct, as groups have set up tents and tarps outside of the precinct.
The protest began last weekend.
It was a mostly calm, but tense, night as protesters continue to demand that authorities release videos of the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old black north Minneapolis resident who was a suspect in an early Sunday scuffle.
Several officers were injured, and several squad cars were damaged, police told the Associated Press.
Nearby was Gayla, who wore a sweatshirt with a silk-screened picture of her son, who she came to the protest to honor, she said.
Videos have been obtained from a variety of sources, police say, but do not show the complete shooting incident. I firmly believe in everyone’s right to protest and understand that people want to have places where they can gather and do that peacefully.
Clark died one day after he was shot by officers.
“The young man was just laying there; he was not resisting arrest”, barber shop owner Teto Wilson, who witnessed the incident, said in a statement released through the Minneapolis NAACP. Police have said Clark was interfering with paramedics tending to his girlfriend.
Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze were identified as the officers involved in the shooting. Both officers have been working for seven years, and have been with the Minneapolis PD since September 2014. The officers, whose race was not disclosed, are on administrative leave during an investigation.
Police said during a Wednesday news conference that demonstrators threw bottles, bricks and rocks at officers as they cleared the entry.
Shwarze was an officer in Richfield for almost six years. Ringgenberg worked for Maple Grove and San Diego, Calif., police departments.
Following the clash between police officers and demonstrators outside the Fourth Precinct Wednesday night, the NAACP released a statement, asking “the Minneapolis Police Department to exercise maximum restraint in handling and responding to nonviolent peaceful protestors, to refrain from the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons and rubber bullets, and to avoid physical contact with protestors”. A few protesters had been sleeping in the precinct vestibule.
The BCA said Clark was a suspect in the assault and that there was an altercation between him and the officers before one of them shot him.
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Harteau said after the meeting that “misinformation” is being spread about the case, but she would not elaborate.
