Organizers expect hundreds at Mall of America protest

The protest Wednesday is aimed at drawing attention to the police shooting last month of a black Minneapolis man, Jamar Clark.

A Minnesota judge says she doesn’t have the power to stop a protest by Black Lives Matter at the Mall of America.

However, Judge Karen Janisch agreed with the MOA that three Black Lives Matters members it has specifically named can not protest in the mall’s building Wednesday and has issued a Temporary Restraining Order against them.

The court denied the mall’s request to order the defendants to remove calls for protest posted on social media and to post a new message saying that the event has been canceled.

The Mall of America is on private property and they ban demonstrations on their premises. She declined to say if she or her fellow organizers still planned to go to the mall, but she said she expects at least 700 people to show up – including some who are prepared to be arrested.

After being served legal papers earlier, Black Lives Matter leader Michael McDowell stated “Black Lives Matter is not known for backing down”.

The mall hopes to avoid a repeat of a huge demonstration last December that forced the closure of stores.

On one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Montgomery said the retail mecca is the flawless venue for their demonstration to pressure authorities involved in the investigation of Clark’s death to release video footage.

Obviously, stopping three people from entering the mall will not come close to stopping the demonstrations. “Just barring three of us does not mean that you’ve stopped our work”, she said.

Hundreds of Bloomington police and security personnel are available to the mall, but another Hennepin Country judge dismissed charges against a number of last year’s protesters on the ground that no move was made to break up the demonstration until it had gone on for a half hour, so that the owner of the property had given “tacit approval” to the protest. “Protesters, citing witness accounts, say Clark was handcuffed when he was killed”.

Defendant Noor had told Minnesota Public Radio, “Us not showing up and us not speaking would be the mall winning, yet again, as corporations and police departments and the institutions collude to silence us, that’s not going to happen”. She believes it would have been wrong to ban the organization’s protest.