Three masked men opened fire on Black Lives Matter activists late Monday night not far from Minneapolis’ 4th Precinct police station. Approximately 200 protesters have maintained a presence at the police station since November 15th, after the police shooting death last week of 24-year old Jamar Clark. Witnesses say Clark, who was alleging interfering with paramedics who had been called to assist his girlfriend, was restrained with handcuffs when he was shot. The name of the officer involved in the shooting has not been released. Neither have videos that activists and community members say may have captured the shooting.
Police have told media that five people were shot; however, organizers with Black Lives Matter-Minneapolis say they have only heard that the number was four. None of the victims’ injuries are life-threatening.
Two of the protesters, Jie Wronski-Riley and Oluchi Omeoga, told Daily Kos what they saw.
Wronski-Riley says: “[The protesters] discovered some white supremacists in the crowd trying to start stuff, and as we were trying to escort them out of the community space, they turned around as they were running away and shot at us.” Wronski-Riley told Daily Kos that the protesters followed the men about a half block away from the encampment but stopped because “[we knew] that they were trying to set us up and isolate us,” and that four members of the group continued to follow the men and that’s when the shooting started. “… it was so loud but I thought it was fire crackers, and I was like ‘surely they’re not shooting at us, they’re not shooting at actual people.”
Oluchi Omeoga said that the police, who have been monitoring the protesters and the encampment since it began, did not immediately respond to the situation, even though they were probably eyewitnesses and have surveillance footage of the shooting. “And we called the police, and I asked them did you just hear those gunshots? Because there were police on the ledge and they were just sitting there, someone just got shot, did you not just hear those shots, and they didn’t do anything, they just sat there and did nothing, and they said why don’t you call 911 and I said you’re 911, but they wouldn’t do anything”
Omeoga said that when the police finally came they were heavy handed, using pepper spray and mace, even though the protesters’ attention was on getting medical attention for the people shot.
Members of the group say the suspected gunmen are white supremacists who have been to the encampment before. They also say the men have posted videos saying they were going to shoot protestoes at the 4th precinct.
BLM-Mpls organizers say that this video shows two of the men who showed up at the protest last week. A live streamer named Unicorn Riot was broadcasting from the encampment last week and actually spoke to the two men seen in the video.
One witness to tonight’s shooting said the same men were the ones who shot protesters tonight; another organizer said she was not sure if the men were the same, but there was video taken of the suspects earlier in the evening and they are working to identify them.
Black Lives Matter-Minneapolis has been live tweeting from the encampment since it began.
Miski Noor, an organizer with BLM-Mpls, says that photos and videos of the suspected gunmen were taken by protesters at the encampment and they are going through the footage to identify them.
“There used to be in north Minneapolis, back in the 60s, something called the Soul Patrol, and we were talking about maybe reviving that or something,” said Noor.
“Because we need some type of community safety watch program. Definitely,” Noor said.