Thread: Five people shot near Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis

Five people shot near Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis

Injured are hospitalized after gunfire erupts near Black Lives Matter camp.
November 24, 2015 — 7:59am

Five protesters were shot late Monday night near the Black Lives Matter encampment at the Fourth Precinct police station in north Minneapolis, according to police.
Those who were shot sustained non-life-threatening injuries, said police spokesman John Elder in a statement.
Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said “a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights.”
One of the three counterdemonstrators wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening.
When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they “opened fire on about six protesters,” hitting five of them. Jaehnert said she heard four gunshots.
The shootings occurred at 10:45 p.m. on Morgan Avenue N. about a block north of the precinct station.



Jeff Wheeler, Star Tribune



The attackers fled. No arrests had been made by midnight Monday. Police said via their Twitter feed that they are searching for three white male suspects.
The gunshot victims were taken to North Memorial Medical Center and Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), deputy police chief Medaria Arradondo said at the scene.
A person at the scene said one of the victims had been shot in the stomach, and was undergoing surgery overnight at HCMC.
Jie Wronski-Riley said angry protesters moved the counter-demonstrators away from the encampment at the police station. Wronski-Riley heard what sounded like firecrackers and thought, “surely they’re not shooting human beings.” Two young black men on either side of him were hit, one in the back and leg, the other in the arm.
At least two of the three men who had been taunting protesters were firing guns, said Wronski-Riley, who described the incident as “really chaotic, really fast.”
“I am obviously appalled that white supremacists would open fire on nonviolent, peaceful protesters,” said Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, who returned to the site after the shootings.
The protesters, angry over the fatal police shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark on Nov. 15, have maintained a presence outside the police station ever since.
Eddie Sutton, Jamar’s brother, issued this statement early Tuesday morning in response to the shootings:
“Thank you to the community for the incredible support you have shown for our family in this difficult time. We appreciate Black Lives Matter for holding it down and keeping the protests peaceful. But in light of tonight’s shootings, the family feels out of imminent concern for the safety of the occupiers, we must get the occupation of the 4th precinct ended and onto the next step.”

http://www.startribune.com/several-p...ite/353121881/

Police: 1 arrested in Jamar Clark protest site shooting

IssuesPeter Cox , Doualy Xaykaothao , Tim Nelson · Nov 24, 2015
Minneapolis police cordoned off a section of road near the 1400 block of Morgan Avenue in north Minneapolis late Monday night after five people were shot, just a block from the police department's 4th Precinct. Doualy Xaykaothao | MPR News

• LISTEN Police: Five shot near Minneapolis protest scene
  
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Latest:
• 23-year-old white male in custody as part of probe into shooting of 5 Monday outside protest over Jamar Clark police shooting
• Gov. Dayton urges end to 4th Precinct protests over security concerns
• Black Lives Matter expected to speak at 1 p.m.
• Now: MPR News live blog
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Updated: 12:05 p.m. | Posted: 2:44 a.m.


A 23-year-old white male has been taken into custody in Bloomington as part of the investigation into Monday's shootings, Minneapolis police say.

Authorities said the suspect's name will be released upon charging and the search for additional suspects continues.

The arrest was announced about 13 hours after five people were shot late Monday night near the 4th Precinct police station in north Minneapolis where crowds have gathered for more than a week to protest the police shooting of Jamar Clark.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/11/24/fourth-precinct

2 Arrested in Shooting of 5 Black Protesters

By JOHN ELIGON and ASHLEY SOUTHALL 1:53 PM ET

The police said a white man and a Hispanic man were held in the shooting at a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis. The victims’ injuries were not considered life-threatening.


2 Men Held in Shooting of 5 at Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest

By JOHN ELIGON and ASHLEY SOUTHALLNOV. 24, 2015
147 COMMENTS

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Police at the scene early Tuesday where gunmen shot five people during a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis on Monday night.CreditStephen Maturen/Getty Images

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MINNEAPOLIS — Two men were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the overnight shootings of five people during a Black Lives Matter protest outside a police station, the Minneapolis Police Department said.
One suspect, a 23-year-old white man, was arrested in Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis, at about 11:20 a.m., the police said in a statement. The other, a 32-year-old Hispanic man, was arrested about 45 minutes later while in his vehicle in South Minneapolis. Neither man was identified.
The police said one other suspect was being sought in the shooting late Monday about a block north of the Fourth Precinct. The victims were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.
“Officers and investigators worked nonstop throughout the night to develop suspects and leads,” the police said in a statement.
On Tuesday afternoon, a large crowd of protesters marched in downtown Minneapolis, including some high school students who walked out of class.
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGE

• 
  
  
  Police and Protesters Clash in Minneapolis Over Fatal Shooting of Black ManNOV. 19, 2015
  
  

The five people wounded were among a number of demonstrators outside a north Minneapolis police precinct where people have gathered for more than a week to protest the shooting of Jamar Clark, 24, who was killed by a police officer on Nov. 15.

NEWS CLIPS By REUTERS 00:50Five Shot at Protest in Minneapolis




Continue reading the main storyVideoFive Shot at Protest in Minneapolis

Scenes from the site where gunmen shot five people during an ongoing protest over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a police officer.
By REUTERS on Publish DateNovember 24, 2015. Watch in Times Video »

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Miski Noor, an organizer at the Minneapolis arm of Black Lives Matter, said the shooting happened as demonstrators were escorting three masked men who had been behaving suspiciously away from the site of the rally. When they reached a dark area, the men turned around and fired on the demonstrators before fleeing, Ms. Noor said.
One victim was shot in the stomach and underwent surgery early Tuesday, Ms. Noor said.
Ms. Noor said that groups of men had been showing up to the demonstrations and “acting shady” since Friday. Witnesses reported that the men were filming protesters and refusing to answer questions about why they were there, she said. In response, the group put together a safety committee to watch for potential agitators and escort them away as a preventive measure, she said.
The police said in their statement that after the shooting, they had put more officers on patrol near the protests.
Some witnesses said on Twitter that they had been sprayed with Mace by the police following the shooting, including an organizer who was trying to film the aftermath, Ms. Noor said. The police did not respond to that report in a news release, and a police spokesman declined to answer questions beyond what was written in the statement.
The fatal shooting of Mr. Clark has led to a series of tense standoffs outside the Fourth Precinct police station.
Protests started within hours of Mr. Clark’s shooting, as some neighbors said that he had been handcuffed when he was shot, which contradicted statements by the Minneapolis police.
Demonstrators have pitched tents outside a police station near the shooting scene, and dozens of people have been arrested during ensuing protests. In one protest, they marched onto an interstate and blocked traffic. Last week, the police used chemical irritants after they said protesters had thrown bricks and bottles.
Activists had pledged to stay until specific demands had been met, including the release of video evidence in Mr. Clark’s shooting. Officials have met two of the demands, agreeing to a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting and releasing the names of the two officers involved.
Continue reading the main storyRECENT COMMENTS

Hayden C.

3 minutes agoI just saw a video on youtube of two young black men describing what happened. They claim that the protesters punched the 3 men because...
William Case

3 minutes agoMuch of the BLM rages seems misplaced or at least unjustified. The news media stirs up racial animosity by focusing on white-on-black...
Yoda

3 minutes agowas one of them really a "white supremacist hispanic"?

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The officers involved in the shooting, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, have worked for the Minneapolis Police Department for 13 months, though both have seven years’ experience in law enforcement.
The police said that Mr. Clark was a suspect in an assault and that he had interfered with paramedics trying to treat his victim. When officers arrived, the police said, he fought with them, leading to the gunfire. Some who said they witnessed the episode disputed that account, saying on social media or to local reporters that Mr. Clark was handcuffed when he was shot.
As in other cities where officer-involved shootings of black men have occurred, the protesters in Minneapolis have sought video evidence to resolve discrepancies between the accounts of the police and of witnesses.
Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is conducting the state investigation, has said that the officers involved were not wearing body cameras and that there was no dashboard camera video from police cruisers. Mr. Evans said that cellphone video, surveillance footage from nearby buildings and a camera in an ambulance had captured portions of the encounter, but not all of it. Mr. Evans said that releasing that footage immediately, as protesters have requested, could compromise the investigation.
CONTINUE READING THE MAIN STORY147COMMENTSMayor Betsy Hodges of Minneapolis issued a statement last week calling on “officers to exercise maximum restraint” and asking “protesters to act peacefully.”
“I understand that emotions are running high in the community and across the city,” her statementsaid. “I share many of the emotions that people are feeling in Minneapolis today.”
Mr. Clark’s family, in a statement released through Representative Keith Ellison’s office after the shooting, urged the demonstrators to end the protest outside the Fourth Precinct, citing “imminent concern” for their safety, The Associated Press reported.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/us...mar-clark.html

Minneapolis police say three people in custody after shooting injures five near protests, one suspect released

By Alex Baumhardt, Wesley Lowery and Mark Berman November 24 at 8:26 PM


The scene after the gunfire. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

MINNEAPOLIS — Authorities on Tuesday said they had three people in custody after someone opened fire on people near a “Black Lives Matter” rally against a recent police killing of an unarmed black man, a day after five people were wounded in a shooting not far from a police building that has been the epicenter of protests here.

In Chicago, meanwhile, officials were preparing for several days of possible protests, as prosecutors on Tuesday charged a police officer with murder and officials released a graphic video depicting the shooting.

The churning situations in two cities more than 400 miles apart came during a period of heightened racial tension and intense scrutiny for how police use force with minorities, something repeatedly brought to the fore as high-profile deaths of black men or boys during and after encounters with police have given way to demonstrations and unrest across the country. In some cases, the promise of a disturbing video brought scores of people to the streets; in other places, like Minneapolis, the protests were driven by a demand that footage be released.

[Chicago police officer charged with first-degree murder in shooting of black teenager]

Protesters in Minneapolis were not daunted by the previous night’s gunfire, and even as police said they were seeking three white suspects, demonstrators continued to gather at the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct, as they have since 24-year-old Jamar Clark was shot earlier this month.

Late on Monday night, police said they received multiple 911 calls after gunfire that wounded five people a block away from the 4th Precinct. All five people, who had been protesting at the police building, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis said in a post on Facebook that “white supremacists” attacked the group “in an act of domestic terrorism,” and the group vowed not to be intimidated.

Minneapolis police said Tuesday that they had arrested two men: A 23-year-old white man taken into custody in Bloomington, a nearby city, and a 32-year-old Hispanic man found in Minneapolis. Authorities said they were still seeking additional suspects and did not identify the men in custody.

Later in the day, police said they had released the 32-year-old Hispanic man after it was determined he was not at the shooting scene. They also said they had a total of three white men in custody. In addition to the 23-year-old arrested in Bloomington, the Minneapolis police said a a 26-year-old and a 21-year-turned themselves into investigators.
Play Video1:32

Spokeswoman: Minneapolis Black Lives Matter shooting a 'hate crime'


Black Lives Matter says masked gunmen opened fire on an encampment protest site, shooting five protesters. The group is calling the shooting "a planned hate crime and an act of terrorism against activists." (Reuters)

Protesters said that the shooting occurred after a group of people — three men and a woman, all wearing ski masks — were seen filming the activity. The people in ski masks went down Morgan Avenue, and a group followed them, but some kind of fight ensued and gunshots rang out, said Henry Habu, who has been at the protests since Sunday.

Habu said that protesters had been told to watch out for white supremacists wearing masks or camouflage clothing, and said the group filming the demonstrations matched those descriptions.

Several people involved in the demonstrations — including a Black Lives Matter organizer and the NAACP Minneapolis chapter president — have said the person or people who opened fire were white supremacists. Authorities have not confirmed those claims.

After the gunshots at 10:40 p.m. on Monday, police said dozens of officers rushed to the scene and began investigating. Demonstrators rushed to tend to the injured, and others flocked to to the area.

“It was very somber,” said John Jacobson, who said he had arrived 30 minutes later after seeing a Black Lives Matter post on Facebook. “Like a wake, and you’re looking for familiar faces.”

One demonstrator was shot in the leg and was among “four boys on the ground,” said Carrie Brown. “He just kept saying, ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me.'”

Federal authorities said Tuesday that they knew about the shooting and were working with local police during the investigation.

“The Department of Justice is aware of the incident and is coordinating with the Minneapolis Police Department to assess the evidence and determine if federal action is appropriate,” the department said in a statement.

The rallies had been sparked by the Nov. 15 shooting of Jamar Clark. Police said that Clark was the suspect in an assault and interfered when paramedics tried to treat the assault victim.

“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.

[Minneapolis police officers involved in shooting death of Jamar Clark are identified]

The officers involved were Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, both of whom have been with the Minneapolis police for a little over a year and have each been officers for seven years, said the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state agency investigating the shooting. Police have not said which officer fired the fatal shot.

The FBI has announced that it will conduct its own investigation, while the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota and Justice Department prosecutors will review evidence to see whether any civil rights statutes were violated.

Some witnesses have said that Clark was handcuffed when he was shot, while police have said that did not appear to be the case. Drew Evans, superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, has said that authorities were still working to determine whether Clark was handcuffed when he died.

Demonstrators have called on police to release video footage of the shooting. Evans has said that there is no complete video of the shooting, though investigators have multiple videos that he said related to the encounter.
Play Video0:58

Social video shows rising tensions after Minneapolis protest shooting

Social video shows the Black Lives Matter protest where five demonstrators were shot late on Nov. 23. Police are searching for three white male suspects involved in the shooting, which took place near the Minneapolis Police Department's 4th Precinct. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The shooting on Monday occurred the night before the one-year anniversary of a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., for fatally shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. That decision helped reignite powerful frustration about the way African Americans are treated by police, and like a similar decision in New York the following month, prompted heated protests.

On Sunday, meanwhile, a vigil marked the first anniversary of the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old fatally shot while playing with a toy gun in a Cleveland park. While numerous other incidents in the interim have resulted in decisions about whether or not the officers should face charges, that case remains open and no decision has been announced, a length of time that demonstrators have criticized.

In Chicago, attention was squarely focused on a shooting that occurred more than a year before Clark’s death. Prosecutors announced that they had charged Jason Van Dyke, a Chicago police officer, with first-degree murder for shooting McDonald in October 2014. The teenager was holding a knife, which police said he had used to slash the tires of one squad car when he encountered officers.

Van Dyke was the only officer to fire at McDonald during the October 2014 incident, officials say. He was on the scene near McDonald for less than 30 seconds before he began firing a total of 16 shots, said Anita Alvarez, the state’s attorney for Cook County, Ill.
The video footage, released on Tuesday evening and broadcast widely across social media, showed McDonald carrying a knife on what appears to be a major road when Van Dyke opened fire. The video also shows Van Dyke continuing to shoot after McDonald falls to the street.
Play Video1:49

Chicago police release video of officer shooting Laquan McDonald

Editor's note: This video contains graphic content. Chicago police released October 2014 video of police shooting Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old. Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder. (Chicago Police Department)

Van Dyke’s attorney has said the officer feared for his life when he opened fire.

But the officer’s actions “were not a proper use of deadly force,” Alvarez said during a news conference Tuesday.

“He abused his authority, and I don’t believe the use of force was necessary,” Alvarez said. She also said: “With these charges, we are bringing a full measure of justice that this demands.”

In April, the Chicago City Council approved a $5 million dollar settlement to McDonald’s relatives. But some in the community say they are angry it took Alvarez’s office so long to charge Van Dyke.

“There is no way this length of time should have gone on so long when the video showed all this evidence,” Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest in Chicago, said Tuesday. “Shame on them for being so late.”

Protesters vowed to demonstrate through the long holiday weekend.

“Michigan Avenue is going to be very uncomfortable,” said Quovadis Green, 24. “We’re going to hit them from every angle and every neighborhood. We got show people that no one is above the law.”

Meanwhile, protesters in Minneapolis vowed to keep returning to the 4th Precinct, though Clark’s family has called for an end to the protests after Monday night’s shooting.

In a message of defiance a crowd of hundreds, diverse in age and rage poured into downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon. Organizers declared it a show of force, and many of those who marched said that the prior night’s shooting drove them into the streets, not out of them.

“I’m out here to make sure those cowards know that they didn’t scare anybody,” said Demetrius Pendleton, 46, who runs a local homeless shelter. “We want to see justice, and we won’t stop until we get it.”

They marched through downtown, as crowds of white men in suits stood in windows of the restaurants during happy hour, many pulling out their phones to record the procession.

“We need justice for our people,” said Takyezia Lee, a 15-year-old high school student who was attending her first protest after watching activism play out nationally across the nation for the last year. “I support everything Black Lives Matter stands for so I decided it was time to join in.”

The sights and sounds were essentially identical to those that have played out in dozens of American cities in the year since Brown was killed. The crowd danced to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” shouted out the names of a number of those killed by police in the last year — Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott — and endlessly chanted, “No justice, no peace, prosecute the police.”

The Minnesota protesters demands were also identical to things said during protests in Ferguson and Cleveland and Baltimore.

“We want justice,” said Pastor Jayme Ali, a local minister who marched near the front of the crowd.

Ali, 44, was born and raised here, and said it is time this city address issues of racial inequity, especially in policing. While she had attended many of the first days of protests, she had not come out for three days because of an illness.

But the shooting of the five activists on Monday night inspired her back into the street. She wanted to show that she wasn’t afraid. As she marched from the police station to City Hall, her hands griped a homemade cardboard sign with a warning for the nation: “This could be your city next.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...near-protests/

By the DOJ’s own statistics for the years 2012/2013, one can extrapolate that it is 27 times more likely a White will be subjected to violence by a Black than the other way around.

Only 3.6% of the time was a victim of White violence a Black.

If racism is bad, then somebody should tell the Blacks to “cut it out” because the statistics clearly show they have a much bigger problem with racism than Whites do.

Originally Posted by csarbww

By the DOJ’s own statistics for the years 2012/2013, one can extrapolate that it is 27 times more likely a White will be subjected to violence by a Black than the other way around.

Only 3.6% of the time was a victim of White violence a Black.

If racism is bad, then somebody should tell the Blacks to “cut it out” because the statistics clearly show they have a much bigger problem with racism than Whites do.

All racism is bad. But their issue which should be all of our issue is law enforcement's treatment of blacks. It's bad, it's always been bad, and it's time it stopped everywhere. Law enforcement doesn't just mistreat blacks, it often mistreats whites as well, and all of it needs to end. Blacks are looking after their own in this regard, that's what the Black Lives Matter protest is really about. Yes, it's broadened into some other areas and that's fine. But the heart and soul of that protest movement is to stop the unnecessary uncalled for murder of blacks by police officers.

I think about the police officers in my community. None of them would ever think of doing something like what has happened in Minnesota or Ferguson or so many other places. It would just never happen. And if our small city can hire good officers who would never violate someone's rights in such a manner, then every city can do this. And my community has a large black population, almost half, and I would say that most of our crime is black on black or black on white crime, and by that I mean more than half. Not all, but a good majority. So the amount of crime committed by blacks should have nothing at all to do with law enforcement gunning them down. The two issues are completely unrelated.

What you're suggesting is if the vast majority of crime was committed by whites on whites or whites on blacks, then police officers should have the right to gun down whites. We know this isn't true. This is wrong, no matter what your race is or what % of crime is committed by individuals of a particular race group. One doesn't justify the other.

Our police officers just handed out 300 Turkeys and all the sides and desserts so poor people in our community could have a nice Thanksgiving. The names of the families were submitted by different organizations. The police contributed and raised money to make this possible and the number of Turkeys and Trimmings given away was increased 50% this year. And for those who weren't able to come and stand in line to pick theirs up, the police officers delivered the boxes of Thanksgiving items to the people's homes. And yes, I'm sure the vast majority of the recipients were black.

Black people still have it harder in our country than most of us. One day this will change and everyone will be equal in everyone's eyes. But that hasn't happened yet, we still have work to do, and to me at least, the Black Lives Matter protest seems to be making a positive impact in several areas. So, good for them! We should support them, we should support all citizens fighting for their rights. In fact, whites should do a better job fighting for our own rights and stop giving them up every time the government issues a new mandate to flex and grow its muscles of authoritarianism. And no, I'm not talking about waving flags and stuff that hurt other people. I'm talking about real freedom. Things that really matter that benefit all citizens.

DEC 2 2015, 12:05 AM ET

Four Charged in Shooting Near Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest

by PHIL HELSEL

Four men have been charged in a shooting at a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis last week, and the prosecutor said he believes it was racially motivated.

Alleged gunman Allen Scarsella, 23, is charged with five counts of second-degree assault and one charge of second-degree riot, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Monday.


Protesters Continue to Rally in Minneapolis 1:08


Five people were wounded when gunfire erupted after a confrontation during protests Nov. 23 over the fatal police shooting of Jamar Clark, 24, police said. None of the injuries were life threatening.

Related: Arrests After Shooting at Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest

None of the four are charged under state hate crime statutes, but asked if the shooting is believed to have been racially motivated Freeman replied, "Oh, yes," citing video the suspects recorded.

"The language they use and how they talk about fellow Americans, citizens, people — is just not acceptable," Freeman said. The current charges carry more potential penalties than hate crime charges would, he said.

Joseph Backman, 27, Nathan Gustavsson, 22, and Daniel Macey, 26, were charged with one count each of second-degree riot, but are not alleged to have shot any one. Police described Macey as Asian and the others charged as white.

Attorneys for Macey and Backman denied their clients are racist, The Associated Press reported, and a lawyer representing Gustavsson said there's no evidence he had a gun.

Related: Minneapolis Roils After Police Killing of Unarmed Black Man

Court documents allege the group planned to go to the demonstration and confront protesters, and then post video to social media, NBC affiliate KARE 11 reported. Demonstrators said several people were forcing the group away from the protest when shots rang out.

Asked whether shooting suspect Allen Scarsella could make a self-defense claim, Feeman said, "We anticipate he may do that. Based on the evidence we see to date, it will not be successful."

Protesters have set up a camp outside the Minneapolis Police Department's 4th Precinct in protest over the Nov. 15 shooting of Clark, who was unarmed.

Freeman said the investigation into that shooting remains ongoing, and said any video recorded of the shooting would not be released before any charging decision is made, as some protesters have demanded.

Scarsella is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail. Gustavsson was being held in lieu of $250,000 bail and Macey was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail Tuesday night, according to jail records. Backman posted $250,000 bail and was released Tuesday, according to the jail.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...rotest-n472546

I hope someone following these stories posts the pictures of the white criminals who tried to gun down people at the Black Lives Matter protest.

Judy wrote (excerpt):

All racism is bad. But their issue which should be all of our issue is law enforcement's treatment of blacks. It's bad, it's always been bad, and it's time it stopped everywhere. Law enforcement doesn't just mistreat blacks, it often mistreats whites as well, and all of it needs to end. Blacks are looking after their own in this regard, that's what the Black Lives Matter protest is really about. Yes, it's broadened into some other areas and that's fine. But the heart and soul of that protest movement is to stop the unnecessary uncalled for murder of blacks by police officers.

When is the black community going to start a protest against blacks murdering blacks? Let's be honest, that is a much more serious issue in this country! IMO, the argument for police brutality could be taken more seriously if most black murders weren't committed by blacks themselves. Perhaps the black community should do more to police itself so there would be less reason for local law enforcement to get involved! That policing I'm referring to would start with parent(s) properly raising and disciplining their children at home. While I don't condone excessive force by police, I do understand why they sometimes feel it necessary. State and local law enforcement agencies employ over 1 million men and women throughout the country. If a law enforcement official breaks the law, then he or she should be prosecuted, however, the entire community shouldn't be judged based on the actions of a few. I'll agree that some black deaths at the hands of law enforcement are unnecessary, but seldom is the person killed completely innocent of criminal activity.

In the United States 93 percent of blacks are murdered by blacks

Black Student Arrested Over Threat to Kill ‘White Devils’ at University of Chicago