Mall attorney pleased by judge’s ruling

A judge ruled Tuesday that several local Black Lives Matter organizers cannot demonstrate at the Mall of America on the busy shopping day before Christmas Eve, but she said she couldn’t stop others from attending the protest.

She also did not approve a temporary restraining order against the “unincorporated entity known as Black Lives Matter Minneapolis”.

The protesters want to demonstrate at the country’s biggest mall to draw attention to the November 15 police killing of a black Minneapolis man, Jamar Clark, and to ramp up the pressure on investigators to release video of the shooting.

Some who witnessed the incident say Clark was handcuffed when shot.

The privately held retail center, one of North America’s largest shopping malls, had asked Janisch to prohibit the group, its alleged leaders and others from protesting and require it to delete social media posts advertising the demonstration.

The mall wrote to BLM leaders informing them they face removal from the property and arrest for trespass if they take part in a demonstration, according to the BLM Facebook page. In addition they want federal terrorism charges to be brought against four men who shot at protesters outside a Minneapolis police precinct last month, injuring five.

The judge did not bar all unidentified Black Lives Matter protesters in advance. She did, however, cite existing precedent that the Mall of America is private property and that the mall may exercise its “rights of possession and control over their private property to exclude from their private property political demonstrators”.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the group is saying that it plans to go forward with Wednesday’s protest.

The mall wanted a temporary restraining order – the order changes a few things, but leaves the basics intact. “Mall of America on Wednesday is a place to take your kids and shop”, Gaertner said Monday.

“We’re not going to be canceling the protest”, Noor told reporters after the hearing in Hennepin County District Court. “Us not showing up and us not speaking would be the mall winning”. The demonstration, which was peaceful, temporarily closed about 80 stores and resulted in two dozen arrests.

Miski Noor, a Black Lives Matter organizer, recently told Fox News that regardless of the judge’s ruling, the activist group plans to carry out the protest. Authorities say they won’t release it while state and federal investigations are ongoing.

” ‘The problem is that they’ve appropriated the public forum where people used to go and congregate and demonstrate in the town square, ‘ Kushner said”.

Jordan Kushner, an attorney for the protest organizers, said Monday the mall doesn’t have the right to ban free speech.

Kandace Montgomery, one of three organizers barred by the judge’s order, said the group isn’t deterred by the ban.