Police brutality in the United States has raised nationwide debates amid a string of police killings of unarmed black men that led to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement.
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People gather around a demonstrator speaking about his encounter with attackers who were shooting at five protesters near the Minneapolis Police 4th Precinct earlier in the night, as protesters gather in front of the…
Shots were fired early Tuesday morning near the scene of a Minneapolis protest for the second night in a row, but there were no reports of injuries, police said.
Three men were arrested Tuesday after a shooting during a Black Lives Matter protest wounded five people in Minneapolis Monday night, police said.
Details remain scant as to what happened in the moments ahead of the gunfire, but witnesses say they were contending with racist outsiders for much of the evening. When the masked men wouldn’t identify themselves, Black Lives Matter protesters escorted them away, but about a half a block from there, they opened fire on the demonstrators. But some people who said they saw the shooting said the 24-year-old was handcuffed. Officials have met two of the demands, agreeing to a federal civil rights investigation into his shooting and releasing the names of the two officers involved.
Alexander Dewan Apprentice Clark, who said he chased the opponents, said when Clark helped him up, he believed what he thought to be a bulletproof vest beneath the man’s clothing and among the men fell.
In brief remarks outside the church where Clark’s was being held, as mourners streamed past, she said another rally was planned for Wednesday afternoon.
The police said in their statement that after the shooting, they had put more officers on patrol near the protests.
One suspect, a 32-year-old Hispanic man, was let go after questioning. “But in light of tonight’s shootings, the family feels that out of imminent concert for the safety of the occupiers, we must get the occupation of the Fourth Precinct ended and onto the next step”.
Authorities haven’t released video from the scene of the shooting, saying they don’t have footage that captures the event in its entirety.
Clark’s family, in a statement attributed to his brother Eddie Sutton and issued through US Rep. Keith Ellison’s office, thanked protesters for “the incredible support” they have shown the family. One demonstrator said the assailants used “police tactics”.
“We ain’t going nowhere”, he said, using a bullhorn.
Clark was shot on November 15 in what police say was a scuffle with officers responding to an assault of a woman in which he was a suspect.
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“At some point during an altercation that ensued between the officers and the individual, an officer discharged his weapon, striking the individual”, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said in a statement. Evans said that there is no complete video of the shooting, though investigators have multiple videos that he said are related to the encounter. The victims were taken to North Memorial Medical Center and two were transported to the Hennepin County Medical Center, where police described their wounds as non-life-threatening. Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and the NAACP have come together to host a day of celebration, a day of mourning and a day of community after we face this horrific tragedy last night.
