Luger and Richard Thornton, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis Division, met with Clark’s family to discuss their conclusions in the case Wednesday morning and planned to meet with community and religious leaders later in the day in hopes of facilitating a conversation on the need for police reforms on the use of force in Minnesota. He died a day later.
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Luger said federal authorities had two clear allegations to investigate – one, that Clark was handcuffed when he was shot and second, he was shot execution style. The federal and state probes came to the same conclusion: Clark was not. Freeman said forensic evidence backed up the officers’ account that Clark was not handcuffed and that he had his hand on an officer’s gun when he was shot.
In March, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman declined to file criminal charges against the officers.
Those conflicting witness statements made it extremely hard to bring a case against the officers, Luger noted.
He had been waiting for a tow truck after his vehicle broke down. Schwarze fired a single shot, hitting Clark near his left eye. Others saw the handcuffs behind him. “I gave him commands, I identified myself, and he turned, pointed the gun at me and started running”.
The death of the 24-year-old Clark last November sparked weeks of largely peaceful protests and the occupation of a north side police precinct. The encampment was taken down 18-days later. Officers Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze responded.
“These conflicting witness accounts seriously undermine the degree to which they could be used to either disprove the officers’ accounts or to affirmatively establish that Clark was handcuffed, ” the federal review concluded.
According to the newspaper, the federal findings about Clark’s DNA on the grip of the officer’s weapon essentially mirrored the state investigator’s finding. The entire encounter that lasted barely more than a minute from the time the officers first arrived.
“There are no winners here”. “And it is tragic”.
In all, according to the federal review, investigators obtained statements from 29 witnesses to the shooting.
USA attorneys have declined to prosecute law enforcement officers accused in civil rights complaints 96 percent of the time over the past two decades, an ongoing Tribune-Review investigation found after analyzing 3 million criminal cases. “It is not enough to show the officers made a mistake, that they acted negligently, by accident or even that they exercised bad judgment to prove a crime”.
Among the reasons prosecutors and legal experts cited to the Trib were an 1866 law and a 1945 Supreme Court ruling that require prosecutors to show officers “willfully” violate someone’s civil rights.
“I understand this decision has struck at the heart of a painful tension in the community”, Hodges said in a statement Wednesday. “What we can do now is move forward together to build a city that is safe and equitable for everyone”.
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“Following the Justice Department’s decision not to charge the officers, Hodges thanked the Justice Department “for its independent investigation” and added that the city push ahead with its own internal (Police Department) investigation”.
