Five People Shot During Black Lives Matter Protest in Minneapolis
According to reports, five Black Lives Matter protestors were shot by a “small group of white men” during a rally outside a Minneapolis police station last night.
The shooting apparently began around 10:40 p.m. Monday night, when Minneapolis Police Department officers say they responded to a call of multiple gunshots.
The group has been outside the station peacefully protesting the Nov. 15 death of Jamar Clark—a 24-year-old, apparently unarmed man who was fatally shot by police—for more than a week. But things turned violent Monday when demonstrators sought to expel three masked men who were “behaving suspiciously.”
As they were escorted from the protest, the three men apparently turned around and opened fire, hitting at least five people.
2 black men just got shot in Minneapolis at #4thPrecinctShutDown pic.twitter.com/aS1GjXqVG3
— Lorena de la Cuesta (@LorenadlaCuesta) November 24, 2015
Miski Noor, an organizer for the Minneapolis arm of the group, called the men “white supremacists” and said they had been harassing the protestors for several days.
According to the Times, the police investigation so far appears to confirm the protestors’ accounts:
During a telephone call to the precinct, police officers were overheard reviewing surveillance video and describing a masked white man pulling out a firearm, a description that appeared to align with accounts of the shooting that witnesses had given to Ms. Noor. In accounts given on social media and to Ms. Noor, witnesses described the gunmen as three men, two white and one Asian, wearing masks and bulletproof vests.
No one was killed in the melee, but one protestor was reportedly shot in the stomach and underwent surgery early Tuesday morning. The others were hospitalized. No arrests have been made.
