NAACP calls on Minneapolis police to show restraint

The national president of the NAACP will be in Minneapolis Friday afternoon for a rally and candlelight vigil outside the 4th Precinct police station. The fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man by a Minneapolis police officer, has pushed racial tensions in the city’s small but concentrated minority community to the fore, with the police precinct besieged by the makeshift encampment and many protesters.

Authorities say a father and his 5-year-old son were shot in Minneapolis less than a block from where an unarmed man was recently killed by police. A few community members have alleged Clark was handcuffed at the time, which police dispute.

A night earlier in the same spot, police said officers were hit with pepper spray, bottles, rocks and bricks, and a chemical spray was used to control the crowd.

Kroll has previously said that Clark was not handcuffed during the struggle.

A grand jury cleared officers in his death, but Levy-Pounds called it “a case of murder of a young African-American man at the hands of Minneapolis police”. Police say he was a suspect in a domestic assault and was shot after allegedly interfering with paramedics who were trying to provide first aid to the victim.

Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau said 12 squad cars had “significant” damage at an estimated $25,000.

Since shortly after the Sunday shooting, protesters have camped out around the 4th Precinct, with a tense relationship between them and police. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will not release it yet, saying the video collected from several sources does not show the entire incident.

As Michelle Gross of Communities United Against Police Brutality was escorted out, she shouted, “We will be heard”.

“Our goal is to come to a resolution”, NAACP spokeswoman Raquel Coombs said.

Ellison, a Minneapolis Democrat who is black, expressed dismay on his Twitter account about a Star Tribune photo showing his son and an officer in riot gear.

Rep. Ellison tweeted the picture of his son, adding: ‘Photo is agonizing for me to see. If, as Mayor Hodges is claiming, officers are exhibiting “maximum restraint” I sincerely fear for the well being of the peaceful protesters now occupying the Precinct.

Black Lives Matter called for a civil rights investigation into “abuses of peaceful protesters”.