Hundreds gather for funeral of police shooting victim in Minneapolis

Some people entering the church wore white T-shirts with “I matter” on the front or T-shirts with Clark’s photo on them, while others were dressed formally. Inside, his obituary said the 24-year-old man “liked to swim, fish, listen to music, play basketball, be with family and take trips to Charlotte, N.C”.

“I’m still hurt”, said his sister, Sharice Burns.

Demonstrators gather outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct on November 24 to protest the shooting death of Jamar Clark.

In an interview on CNN, Raeisha Williams, communications chair of the Minneapolis NAACP, said protesters believe police officers were involved with the attack on them. State and federal investigations are underway.

Authorities are weighing whether to treat the shooting of five people protesting near the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct as a hate crime, sources familiar with the investigation said. “Jamar, your life did and does have objective”, said Bishop Richard D. Howell Jr., a bishop at the Shiloh Temple. “Your death was not in vain”, Howell said. Vehicles in the procession honked their horns, and protesters shouted “Justice for Jamar”.

Four men are now being held in connection to Monday’s shooting that injured five people protesting near the Fourth Precinct in Minneapolis. Minneapolis police have said Clark was a suspect in the assault.

All four suspects are being held in the Hennepin County Jail without bail on suspicion of assault, according to online jail records. His name will be released upon charging.

The shootings spurred a march Tuesday evening, with a racially mixed crowd marching more than 2 miles to City Hall and back. 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 USA cities.

“The family of Jamar Clark has been traumatized by the violent manner of his loss, the absence of information or explanation for the shooting and the challenge of navigating their grief amid the glare of media attention and among competing political agendas”, Steven Belton, the league’s interim president, said in a statement.

That likely won’t happen, said Jayme Ali, a pastor at God of All Truth Church. Clark’s older brother, James Hill, said Hodges sent her condolences for not attending the funeral adding that he wanted her to hold the officers accountable. The officer was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday, but activists note that it had taken more than a year and a lawsuit to get the video released – and charges were not brought until hours before the video was made public.

“We are not going nowhere”.

In a video, Mayor Betsy Hodges said she “abhors last night’s acts”.

Only across the Mississippi River from the Fourth Precinct in Minneapolis, an answer may be taking shape.

For the most part, members of the black community say they still don’t feel it. Even on a Tuesday night when everything seemed to go about as well as could have been hoped, the lingering feelings among black activists in Chicago was bitterness and frustration.

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state agency investigating his death, is looking into whether he was restrained. Police had issued a warning Friday night, asking demonstrators to be vigilant and report any suspicious behavior to authorities.