Judge bars only organizers from Mall of America protest

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.

“Minnesota’s Mall of America, where Black Lives Matter activists have held several protests this past year, is suing eight organizers-including Unitarian Universalists-to block them from holding a December 23 “#Justice4Jamar” protest at the mall.

The mall sought a restraining order after the group said last week it planned a return protest at the mall, where about 1,500 people protested last December over the deaths of black men in police-involved incidents in NY and Missouri.

Hennepin County District Court Judge Karen Janisch barred three protest organizers named as defendants in the mall’s lawsuit from attending the demonstration, but she limited her order to them.

“The Court does not have a sufficient basis to issue an injunction as to Black Lives Matters or to unidentified persons who may be acting as its agents or in active concert with the Black Lives Matters movement”, she wrote.

On Tuesday afternoon, Judge Janisch refused to rule on the request to ban BLM from protesting inside the mall.

According to USA Today, Mall of America representatives had sent letters to Black Lives Matter organizers ahead of the 2014 protest, warning them that it was illegal to protest on private property, and they were therefore running the risk of being arrested.

This story has been altered to correct the spelling of Black Lives Matter, which had been misspelled “Black Lies Matter” in one instance. Mall attorney Susan Gaertner says it is private property and that the owners prohibit demonstrations. “Mall of America on Wednesday is a place to take your kids and shop”, Gaertner said.

“If the demonstration is allowed to go forward on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Mall of America is certain to lose guests who would otherwise have visited the mall”, Mall of America said of the planned protest.

Absent those conditions, “organizers have no plans to halt the demonstration”, the group said. They want to press authorities to release video of the shooting that remains undisclosed.

“We are a leader-full organization”. As NPR reported at the time, protesters and police differ on the circumstances of Clark’s death.

Jordan Kushner, an attorney for the protest organizers, says the mall still doesn’t have the right to ban speech.

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.