Shooting at BLM rally

[Gandalf]

This seemed to slip under the proverbial radar.

Police are searching for three white men wanted in the shooting of five people near a Minneapolis police station where demonstrators have gathered for more than a week to protest the recent killing of an unarmed black man by officers.

None of the injuries were believed to be life-threatening in the shooting, which occurred a block from the police station where protests have taken place since the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, 24, on November 15, Minneapolis police said in a statement.

The wounded were taken to local hospitals.

The Black Lives Matter Minneapolis group protesting Clark's shooting said on its Facebook page that five unarmed protesters were shot by what it described as white supremacists who had been asked to leave the area and were followed out by protesters before they opened fire.

The police, however, have not yet confirmed a connection between the shooting and the protest.

Kyle Loven, a spokesman for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's Minneapolis Division, said that the FBI was "aware of last night's incident and is coordinating with the Minneapolis Police to assess the situation and determine whether federal action is appropriate."

He declined to say whether the FBI was investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime.

Eddie Sutton, Clark's brother, said in a statement that in light of the shootings, his family believed the demonstrations at the police station should end, "out of imminent concern for the safety of the occupiers."

"We appreciate Black Lives Matter for holding it down and keeping the protests peaceful," Mr Sutton said in the statement.

Black Lives Matter said it is planning further marches, and Kandace Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the group, said the shooting has not shaken the group's resolve.

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis on its Facebook page put out a call for supplies.

"Family! We need warm food, gloves/hats, chairs, firewood, and snacks!! We are very low on supplies. Please bring down ASAP. We will not be intimidated."

Questions have been raised as to whether Clark was handcuffed when he was shot, which police have denied, and protesters have demanded authorities release videos of the November 15 incident.

Clark died the next day from a gunshot wound to the head and the officers involved are on leave.

Earlier on Monday, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton said he reviewed video footage taken from the back of an ambulance and said it does not appear to show conclusively what happened in Clark's shooting.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating Clark's shooting as is the FBI, which has said release of videos and other evidence would be detrimental to the investigation.

Authorities have said there was no video of the shooting from police dashboard or body cameras, but investigators are reviewing video from business and security cameras in the area, as well as witnesses' cell phones.

Clark's shooting comes at a time of heightened debate in the United States over police use of lethal force, especially against black people. Over the past year, protests against killings of unarmed black men and women — some videotaped with phones or police cameras — have rocked a number of US cities.

Police used pepper spray and fired rubber marking bullets at least twice when the largely peaceful Minneapolis demonstrations became heated.

A police union representative has said Clark grabbed one officer's gun, although the weapon remained in its holster.

Reuters

More domestic terrorism in the US, it would seem. But which American news agencies will use the term?

[Mr Bean]

There's some clear "something up" going on with this shooting. It's not "slipped under the radar" it's one of those "Oh fuck how do we report this?" kind of situations.

The facts everyone agrees on on the shooters

1. There were three of them
2. It was a Black Lives Matter protest
3. They were masked
4. The Black Lives Matters protesters confronted said masked people
5. There was a physical alternation of some kind
6. BLM chased said people more than one block from the protest site
7. Some number of the masked persons then opened fire on the BLM protestors in claimed self defense

Everything else is up in the air up to an including everything from these were known members of the KKK, BLM threw bricks at them. The shooters were NOT the masked people who confronted BLM, the masked people were shouting racial epithets at BLM. To the most damning, said persons organized online ahead of time to set up this kind of self defense scenario of antagonizing the crowd then running away so they could claim self defense when they turned and fired. That the masked protesters only opened fire after one of there number was caught by the crowd and started being dragged back. None of that is confirmed, everything is speculation and the story is still in the air. Everything I'm hearing is mass confusion reporting.

[Joun_Lord]

When I first read this I thought there was a shooting at a Bureau of Land Management rally possibly by some Bundy supporter.

Anyway if Bean is right then both sides sounds like they might be to blame. Sounds like the white people were there to start shit (assuming the counter-protesters were the same as the shooters) but the protesters were more then happy to get violent. People being cunts is no reason to physically attack others.

While I might not agree with the BLM movement in some things and think some of their tactics are stupid and dickish (poor Bernie Sanders made a bitch at his own rally) people of the movement never really struck me as the type to attack people even over IRL trolls tactics. Of course with any large organization there is some bad apples and people in one section may not respond as others in the another might. Plus the fact its relatively anonymous means anyone can be at a rally including people there waiting for shit to go down for whatever reason like all the assclowns in Ferguson who used the protests there as cover to loot and destroy everyfuckingthing.

I'm just glad nobody died on either side. Even racist violence baiting idiots and violent morons who haven't realized words ain't worthy of being physically violent don't deserve to die.

[Grumman]

While I might not agree with the BLM movement in some things and think some of their tactics are stupid and dickish (poor Bernie Sanders made a bitch at his own rally) people of the movement never really struck me as the type to attack people even over IRL trolls tactics.

Based on what, exactly? The event that made them famous was their whitewashing of a violent criminal who was shot while reaching into a police vehicle to grab a cop's gun, and then again while running towards that same cop instead of surrendering when it became clear he wasn't going to get away.

[Joun_Lord]

Based on what, exactly? The event that made them famous was their whitewashing of a violent criminal who was shot while reaching into a police vehicle to grab a cop's gun, and then again while running towards that same cop instead of surrendering when it became clear he wasn't going to get away.

Did members of BLM do that or did Mike Brown? Because I'm pretty sure it was just Mike Brown and thats one of the reasons I don't agree with them sometimes, because some of the people they are defending definitely seemed to do something.

Others like that kid shot in Ohio, the guy choked out in NY for selling cigarettes, and maybe Trayvon Martin I can see defending. Two did little and were killed by cops for it and the last died because of a idiot with fantasies of LARPing cops and robbers.

But anyway, the criminals they are defending or the innocent victims, none were actually members of BLM and BLM hasn't until yesterday maybe done anything violent themselves.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Based on what, exactly? The event that made them famous was their whitewashing of a violent criminal who was shot while reaching into a police vehicle to grab a cop's gun, and then again while running towards that same cop instead of surrendering when it became clear he wasn't going to get away.

Don't be a twat. You're deliberately trying to paint the movement as being insidious and intentionally subversive of facts to suit your own agenda, when everyone who has been paying attention knows that this isn't the case. The initial reaction to the Mike Brown incident was based on the incomplete facts available at the time; it wasn't until MUCH later that it became clear that some of the testimony was unreliable, which was why the courts cleared the officer. Yes, the initial reaction was wrong, but it wasn't some grand conspiracy to "whitewash a violent criminal". You'll notice that once the facts of the case became more clear, Mike Brown was no longer used as a rallying point. Which doesn't change the fact that the movement is about the much broader spectrum of actions by police in this country in incidents utterly unrelated to Mike Brown and not nearly as exculpatory for the involved police.

[Patroklos]

You might have a point Ziggy if you can find any BLM representative that will publicly accept the known facts regarding Micheal Brown. They deny them to this day.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You might have a point Ziggy if you can find any BLM representative that will publicly accept the known facts regarding Micheal Brown. They deny them to this day.

That is not required. The DOJ investigation into that police department proves their point for them, as does the laundry list of other blatant offenses against black people, complete with video evidence, that mishandled and shoved under a rug by the police and court system. Mike Brown is largely irrelevant. Had the incident been isolated, it would have caused zero uproar. I dont fault them for not trusting the courts at this point, they have been victimized by those same courts that basically shake them down for money. We have the benefit of being dispassionate. They don't.

The FPD arrested a man on a warrant that was not his, beat him into hospitalization in his cell, then charged him with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms. The part about bleeding on their uniforms was IN THEIR FILED CHARGES. He was convicted in local courts and it took a state appellate court to overturn that.

Baltimore PD has a long history of playing intravehicular pinball with black suspects, leading to repeated hospitalizations, cripplings, and deaths over the years. This history spans decades, at least into the '80s, yet only one officer has ever been criminally charged with this until the most recent, and that was in the 1990s. Despite repeated upheld lawsuits.

I can go through a laundry list of bona fide police misconduct that has been systematically ignored in this country, disproportionally directed at black people. But you want to hang your KKK mask on the one case that did not pan out? Fuck you.

[Patroklos]

Hang my KKK mask eh? I said exactly two things. 1.) Micheal Brown and the circumstances of his death were not what BLM claimed him to be and 2.) BLM has refused to accept this truth. Do you not accept either of these things? Assuming you are intelligent and do accept them, are you now a KKK member too? Your instant reaction of hate and invective show you have inadequacies regarding your position.

Being unable to accept the truth of your foundational incident speaks to a deep psychological failing inside the movement. That doesn't mean you are not right in the main but it does mean you are probably not the correct group to champion the movement. It wasn't the Black Panthers or the Malcolm X crowd that carried the day for civil rights, it was MLK and gang. That's not an accident even when all three spoke to a core truth they held in common.

And Micheal Brown is hardly the only BS that has come from BLM. They flail all over the place and latch onto anything and anything that they perceive fits their message from legitimate shooting incidents that are disturbing in Chicago to bracing up "filthy white bitches" who are studying in libraries. You can't be effective with such oscillations and in fact BLM has proven wildly ineffective and counterproductive where public opinion is concerned.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.2439090

Hang your dunce cap on this on flash in the pan temper tantrum that won't pan out if you want. Fuck you, serious people have serious issues to work on and would prefer BLM didn't make them harder.

[Patroklos]

DP

[Simon_Jester]

You might have a point Ziggy if you can find any BLM representative that will publicly accept the known facts regarding Micheal Brown. They deny them to this day.

Who's "they," and can you provide evidence?

Part of the problem here is that "Black Lives Matter" isn't an organization, it's a hashtag. Literally anyone can join.

This includes adolescents who have a deep-seated craving to strike back against The Oppressor but lack the life experience and common sense to know who The Oppressor is or how to strike him effectively.
________________

Another issue is that, after the massive and longstanding history of being lied to and lied about by the authorities, there are millions of people who simply do not care what the official story on a given incident is.

Because even if the story "this guy was a thug who, improbable as it may seem, charged an armed man who had already shot him at least once before, in the open, in broad daylight, despite half or more of the eyewitnesses denying it.

They've seen similar "this guy was a thug" stories used to justify murder in the dark, to justify the deaths of small children, to justify deaths of people who were supposed to be in the custody (that is, guardianship) of the state. Used to justify death piled upon death piled upon death. To make it sound as if they and everyone like them are inevitably nothing but a bunch of orcs, who exist solely to get into suicidal clashes with the police.

Is it any wonder they really are not interested in the specific chain of events that led to one of several major high profile incidents in the last year or two all being a misunderstanding of a lawful 'police action?' The reason they have a problem is something else entirely. It's not about this tree or that tree; it's about the forest. It's about the perception that as far as local, state, and federal government are concerned, black lives don't matter.