Minneapolis police kill unarmed black man

Haven't had time to get to a computer and post more info. But today city council meeting was disrupted. One of the cops who killed Jamar turns out almost killed an unarmed man when he was with the San Diego police. The IWW here put out background information on the local loudmouth police union head, who has been linked to a groups that has white nationalist links. I think a couple high schools walked out today and went to the 4th Precinct.

Um, the other night, when cops tried to evict the occupation and some of the protesters fought back, local liberal nonprofit "leaders" started snitchjacketing people during the protest and on social media. One longtime ARA person had their image circulated online by one of these people, saying that he was a fed. These leaders I guess also pointed out "troublemakers" to police. A new term has come out of this..."crackerjacketing" which is when people try to characterize radical multiracial groups or crews as white. This is almost as common, and usually intertwined with, the use of "outside agitator". That term is now being used by the police chief. She had a press conference yesterday in which she held a big chunk of concrete which she said had been thrown by anarchists.

Went to the occupation last night. There were about 350-400 there. Street in front of the encampment was blocked off, with protesters directing traffic. Seems most of the police were in the back of the property, a fenced in area with a lot of floodlights directed outwards. Reminded me of a foreign embassy in a hostile country or something. The mayor showed up, talked to protesters for a little bit before people got sick of her answers and heckled and shouted at her. She was whisked away pretty quick.

The encampment reminds me of a more organized Occupy. Numerous fire pits (it was 30F last night with 25mph winds). Tents, hot coffee and stacks of free pizza. It was pretty calm. Reverands, Rep. Keith Ellison and various BLM people spoke. 2 people were arrested later that night for spraying "fuck the police" on the precinct's walls.

Police chief and police union head argued with each other on radio today over how to handle protests. Good cop/bad cop shit...

Here's an account of Wednesday night from First of May Anarchist Alliance

Protesters and neighborhood folks in North Minneapolis laid siege to the 4th Precinct Police Station over the Saturday night police murder of an unarmed young Black man, Jamar Clark. Witnesses report that Clark was handcuffed and on the ground when police shot him in the head.

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis called for a protest the next day, which turned into an encampment outside and occupation inside of the Station's front entrance. Monday night, with highschool age youth in the lead, protesters marched on to Interstate highway 94 blocking it for several hours.

Wednesday night the generally festive atmosphere outside the station turned militant after the police retook the front entrance, evicting the occupiers. Angry Black neighborhood residents and multi-racial groups of anarchists organized militant defense against the station and its racist occupying police force.

Police shot rubber bullets and chalk rounds and sprayed tear gas - while the crowd answered with rocks and bottles. At one point a mobile police surveillance tower was knocked over and later dragged to block the main gate to the Station parking lot.

Strategic differences among the crowd and particularly between BLM's largely non-profit staffer organizing base and other grassroots protesters began to come to a head over the street militance.

This struggle is not over, it has just begun.

Statement from Twin Cities IWW African People's Caucus

After recent events in Minneapolis, Minnesota following the killing of Jamar Clark, organizers from black lives matter – along with the chief of police and the mayor – have been condemning militant actions as a part of protest. Some of the things that have been said are that property damage and the throwing of bricks and bottles was due to the presence of “outside agitators.” These reformist organizers and city officials are specifically referring to “white anarchists.” The lies also included accusations of non-BLM aligned demonstrators being police/community occupiers – as one vouched for the other, ethnicities ranging from Asian to White to Black demonstrators, each were accused of being police officers.

Therefore, we should discuss the problems with these faulty accusations because they can indeed cause sever repercussions due to snitch-jacketting; there are several problems with the line that is being pushed. First being that Black Lives Matter-MPLS and city officials are completely ignoring the autonomous militant action of the north Minneapolis community. This suggests that the community needs “white anarchist” or any other “agitator” to tell them how to be angry and how to take action is insulting. Also, this is dismissing the radical left militants that have participated in this movement and others in the past, present, and future that are not white. The purpose for these accusations is to maintain the BLM monopoly over the anti-police brutality movement. This has become a part BLM-MPLS agenda in the fight against police terrorism rather than respecting communities and spending more time pursuing real results. Similar to other non-profits, BLM-MPLS has funneled revolutionary spirits into dead-end reformist campaigns.

Since the beginning of the week there has been conflict between BLM-MPLS organizers and local community members. Essentially, the disagreement has been over tactical or strategic differences. While we remain supportive of the general goals of BLM-MPLS, we are highly critical of their politics and way of operating. In recognizing this dynamic, anarchists and other leftists from the African Peoples Caucus (APC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a newly formed group of radicals of African Descent that have been organizing and meeting since October, support the righteous anger of the local black working class community. While it is true that many of the members of the IWW are white, blanket statements about white radicals is ignoring those radical organizers who are not white and committed to different strategies of struggle than BLM-MPLS. The IWW consistently pushes for diversity of tactics and can aid in being versatile. This is through drawing from a wide range of experiences gathered from Pickett line training, organizer training, or real lived experiences worldwide. However, organizers do not wish to impose their ideology on communities when joining their struggle. Police terror is common across the working class, but experienced very differently across the working class. Therefore, many members of the IWW, particularly the APC of the IWW, share the same rage that oppressed communities, who are targets of police terrorism, share. This is why many members have been demonstrating alongside the community since the incident.

While many members share this rage, it is respectfully acknowledged and must remain respectfully acknowledged that the movement against police terror must come from within and be led from within the north side of Minneapolis.

Larger NAACP march today and vigil.

Cops said they found molotovs "near" 4th Precinct. Missed hearing about this but I guess some were thrown at the station the other night.

Racist 4chan "gun rights" board posters has been spamming the #justice4jamar hastag on Twitter and two of them showed up last night armed and videotaping protesters. More of them are supposed to show up. BLM organizers and antifa working together to watch out for them.

No problem, gram. Hoping these posts are useful

Just got back a little while ago. Pretty calm tonight. As it got late, crowd whittled down. Kinda feels like a waiting game. Cops rarely showed themselves except peaking over the wall on a scissor lift. Walls are way more tagged up since last night, with stuff like RIP Jamar, fuck the police, acab etc.

There was a church group that came out and led a large prayer. I think some of the black churches in the city have been making trips to the occupation.

Lot of support from neighborhood. People driving buy, honking, raising fists, yelling fuck the police. People have donated food and warm clothes for people. There's even people stopping bu with cars and telling people to jump in to get warm for a bit. Never would have thought anout that but its a small, practical thing someone can do to support whats going on. Plus on Wednesday when the cops were pretty aggressive with tear gas, pepper spray and marker rounds and snatch squads, the neighborhood sheltered a lot of protesters by letting them into their homes.

Heard there's a split in the city council. Some of them have been coming to the occupation while others have publicly questioned thosr councilmembers doing so.

Probably gonna head down tomorrow too

First video to hit the internet has surfaced of the aftermath of the shooting.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1011158522261274&id=838424259534702

City has begun moving concrete barriers, cranes etc around 4th Precinct. Rumors of raid at 7:30am, which is in 2.5 hours

So they didn't end up forcing people out, but they blockaded the street along the side gate entrance with concrete barriers, which, as I understand it, was one of the hot spots where protesters fought off the advancing police on Wednesday night and also where an SUV supposedly tried to ram through the gate some other day.

Today, a few hundred members of AFL-CIO unions showed up at the occupation.

Im hearing that 2 people were shot at the protest, possibly by white supremacists, although I don't know what they're basing that on.

EDIT: Now hearing 3-5 were shot.

There's so many rumors and misinformation going around but it seems that 2-4 white men and possibly one Asian man or woman came to the occupation. They were across the closed off street from most of the protesters, masked up and filming them. They were asked to unmask and refused. This escalated to a physical fight and the group was chased out, down the block where they opened fire and then fled, possibly in a SUV.

Police took their time responding and then ended up pepper spraying people at the scene and making comments such as "this is what you wanted".

Last week in /k/ in 4chan, there was an effort to get racists to the protests. At least 2 of them showed up. There were claims that poisoned food was donated. A video later posted online by these two people showed them making racist comments and displaying a handgun. Also, 4chan racists flooded the #justice4jamar hashtag, making it almost useless. It was filled with misinformation and some people were taking that stuff as real. Anyway, some people are saying the 2 people from last week were part of the group that opened fire last night but again there's so much rumors going around, who knows.

There's a couple school walkouts happening today and a march to the precinct. The family of Jamar has asked that the occupation end for safety reasons, but don't think that's going to happen.

A 23 year old man was just arrested in the suburb I work in. Seems he's connected to the shooting somehow

32 year old Hispanic male also arrested. I remember seeing that one of the two racists from last week's video were doxxed and it was a former Latino soldier. Wonder if that dox was accurate then...

4chan is a website, k is the 'weapons' section.

3 people arrested. Their names have been put out. Hispanic wasn't at the shooting but is one of the guys in the video. He flashes the weapon.

http://m.startribune.com/social-media-offer-clues-into-shooting-suspects-motives/353411111/

Some of the people who were shot last night have been released. At least 2 of them showed up to the march today on crutches.

The march today was 1,000-2,000 strong and went from the 4th Precinct to City Hall and back.

Jamar Clark shooting being handed over to grand jury, which bring charges against cops something like 3% of the time. Department of Justice officials were in town, met with Jamar's family and BLM people. Local city officials have been pretty silent since last night's shooting. The mayor released a video on Facebook condemning the shooting.

Didn't make it back up to the northside after the march, but hearing the police snatched one person out of the crowd, while BLM people on the mic said it was his own fault. Smh.

Barricades have been set up on both ends of the street by them occupation and there's a security detail of anarchos and people from the neighborhood I'm hearing.

One of the protesters shot last night, at the march today

Pictures from today's march

Picture I took at the occupation on Friday night. This is right in front of the 4th Precinct

Also last Friday, NAACP vigil

Scene from last Wednesday, when protesters and police clashed

Some of the kids who did a walkout last Friday

Police chief and mayor talking about boogeyman anarchists last Thursday

Various pix from the last week

Reporter pepper sprayed last week

One of the snatch squads constantly around the occupation

Left town for Thanksgiving so not in the loop as much right now.

NY and Philly (others?) had Minneapolis solidarity marches that blocked streets etc.

So, back in Minneapolis. Thought I'd go over what's happened since my last post.

There were solidarity marches in different cities on November 25.

NY Solidarity march

Philly solidarity march blocking intersection

On Thanksgiving, the occupation at the 4th Precinct had 'Blacksgiving'

BLM Minneapolis put out some rules for the occupation

Hey fam! Today a bunch of us gathered to create what we hope is the beginning of building our intentional space together in community. This is what we came up with! We will continue to build off of these as we continue build space together. ‪#‎justice4jamar‬ ‪#‎blacklivesmatter‬ Please help us share this far and wide.

1. Stay positive with each other, let's turn up on the state and turn down on each other.

2. Don't engage the cops if they come outside.

3. Don't engage in gang activities.

4. Please stay sober when in the space. Please do not use drugs or alcohol.

5. Respect women, no catcalling, no harassing.

6. Please help stop individual conversations that are disrespectful.

7. Security will be easily visible for people.

8. Non-violent zone: it's a no gun zone, no throwing rocks, and no throwing logs from fire.

9. We will have shifts for visible security. Please tell one of them if you need help.

10. No destruction of property. Do not break windows on cars, or buildings or nearby homes. Do not remove pavers.

11. No kids under 13 years old that are unaccompanied after 7:30pm.

12. We will have daily meetings, updates, and trainings each day.

13. Go to trainings that include civil disobedience and de-escalation. (Schedules to come out.)

14. Religious people please do not try to convert others.

15. White people do not speak to the media.

It just came to light, that one of the officers involved in Jamar Clark's killing was sued for excessive force 10 days prior to the incident.

The mayor, Rep. Ellison, the Urban League and others held a press conference today calling for the occupation to end.

The 4 people arrested in connection with shooting protesters were finally charged today.

On Thursday, there's an IWW organized picket of the police union's headquarters in St. Paul. The head of the union has been pretty scathing in the media and has a history of brutality and racism.

As for the white people speaking to media thing, I'm assuming that's because the media looks for white faces to talk to and represent the occupation to the public, at the exclusion of the many black organizers involved.

The right-wing narrative on the racist shooting at the occupation is 'self-defense' now.

Saw this Facebook post from Mel Reeves, a long-time local activist. Although we probably disagree politically, he has consistinly spoke against lining up with the city government and complaining about vandalism and "violence" in the BLM movment.

Dateline: Minneapolis,MN

Minneapolis elected officials, officially selected Negroes turn on protestors; community

In a strange twist of events, elected officials and some black folks that the Minneapolis power structure have appointed as the leaders of the black community, turned their focus away from the effort to get justice for Jamar Clark and called a press conference to beat up on, brow beat and talk down to the community trying to bring attention to their cause the best way they knew how, by occupying the Fourth Precinct.

These fine folks led by US Rep Keith Ellison managed to make those who have been victimized the problem, rather than the police, who caused this encampment to come about in the first place when they cold bloodedly shot unarmed Jamar Clark, point blank in the head.

What Congressman Ellison and the hand maidens of the City power structure failed to acknowledge is that this system they cherish so much has left folks little choice. This system on its own,won’t or refuses to do what’s right and prosecute those cops. So left with little recourse within the system, people have to take to the streets to try and force the power structure to do what it clearly doesn’t want to do and that is punish its own.

Rather than wasting time denouncing the encampment and victim blaming, it seems that the good representative should be in Washington advocating for justice on our behalf.

During the press conference he proferred advice to the protestors, but we don’t need his advice, we need his advocacy on Capitol Hill, that’s why he was elected. We need him to stand up and say to the feds, the state the mayor of Minneapolis that these cops should be arrested and charged, as any other citizen would.

In fact the mayor and her Democratic party cronies as our elected representative ought to be putting pressure on their fellow DFLer Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to prosecute the cops who killed Jamar Clark.
Ellison misrepresented the community’s wishes by implying that the community simply wanted a fair process. No we want justice, which in this case would mean prosecution of those cops by the Hennepin County prosecutor as he has done thousands of times to blacks and others suspected of crimes.

Incredibly, some of these master appointed folks were downright angry. Strangely they don’t seem all that mad about Jamar Clark being shot down in cold blood.

Furthermore there are so many real injustices in our community to be angry about. The Minneapolis schools are only graduating half of their black students, but I didn’t see any of those folks calling press conferences expressing their anger about that. Minneapolis has the worst,that’s right the worst unemployment disparity between blacks and whites with blacks almost four times likely to be unemployed as whites, but there was no anger. A recent report came out that said that black youth in Minneapolis are arrested nine times more than white kids for marijuana possession, but there was no outcry by these folks. Black Minneapolis was hit hard by the foreclosure crisis, but there was no righteous indignation A few years ago when young Terrance Franklin was gunned down, there was silence.

Despite all this inequality, injustice and structural racism there have been no angry words, no venom no vitriol aimed at the source of this inequality, the power structure.

This is because many of the folks at yesterday’s press conference in the words of Bob Marley “bellies are full,”limiting their ability to identify with the plight of their lesser off bretheren. I suspect that many of the “appointed” black leaders have been living off the largess of the liberal foundation plantation, which is how Minneapolis rewards its good Negroes, those who toe the company line.

Moreover they show their fangs at their brothers and sisters and other well -meaning folks righteously demanding justice, but they roll over when the masters of the power structure pee all over their lesser brothers and sisters.They got no fangs then. In those instances they show proper decorum and respect.

Real leadership was shown by Minneapolis NAACP president Nekima Levy Pounds who took an unpopular position supporting the encampment and vowing not to leave, she let it all hang out, consequences be damned.

Ellison in his zeal to blame the victim mentioned that the unintended consequences of the encampment is that the neighborhood is being inconvenienced; that smoke was in the neighborhood, traffic has been detoured around the encampment, and a city bus has to be rerouted a few blocks. But I suspect he isn’t telling the whole truth, I believe that most of my neighbors are willing to put up with a little disruption for some justice. Every movement that advanced the cause of justice caused folks some disruption.

Ellison also pointed out that the encampment was unsafe because domestic terrorists attacked it, I don’t know why it didn’t occur to him or Mayor Betsy Hodges that it is there job to keep their constituents safe!

There were indeed unintended consequences of the encampment or what I call the Northside People’s Village: the poor are being fed, winter clothes have been provided for my neighbors and their children who needed them, hope has been restored to the hopeless, dignity and confidence and a sense of purpose has been returned to some who had lost it.

Levy-Pounds said yesterday that, "everybody that stood with Mayor Hodges is not part of the solution, they're part of the problem."

Let me paraphrase one of the fine gentlemen who was sicced on the community yesterday. If you didn’t know that publicly calling our your own community on behalf of the power structure is divisive and hurtful and borderline "Nay Naying" for the "man" now you know.

justice then peace

An interfaith group of clergy did an action at City Hall

Was surprised to see the editorial board of a newspaper in St. Cloud (medium sized city a couple hours outside Minneapolis) question calls for the occupation to end.

There has been some pushback to the backlash that pops up here and there in the media. This counterpoint to a ridiculous editorial in the StarTribune (Minneapolis' main newspaper) is decent.

Probably one of the biggest things in the local news right now is the claim that police response times to high priority calls (emergency in progress) have increased by one minute since the 4th Precinct Occupation has been going on. This is a favorite anti-BLM thing, you heard it with the highway marches and blockades. Any disruption of a political nature is going to hear this kind of stuff. Of course, no one brings these things up when disruption is of a non-political nature (such as sports events, Black Friday, weather, other factors, etc.)

The City Council meeting today had some people who live in the neighborhood the occupation is in complaining that it needs to come to an end. However, this 'public comment' section of the Council's meeting was not on the agenda beforehand, and at least some of these residents were contacted by a councilmember who has not been supportive of BLM's efforts. I think there is a mixture of opinions in the broad neighborhood, and the city council meeting didn't relfect that in any way.

The Fox affiliate here got their hands on a tape of an incident involving one of the officers that killed Jamar Clark. The incident resulted in that officer being sued for excessive force.

Police raided and evicted the occupation at 4 this morning. There were several arrests. I believe everyone has been released as of 8:30 AM.

I'm at work now, Jamal, so I'll have to answer your questions more in depth later.

Yeah, Soapy, it has been about 20-30F most nights and it snowed about 4 inches last week. I haven't to the occupation since November 21st though, when it was a little warmer.

Looks like BLM called a rally today at City Hall at 4PM. Then there's the police "union" picket at 6PM.

The precinct now looks like an American embassy in the Middle East...

Jamal

Thanks for the continuous updates, Juan. Your perspective is much more informative than any of the news outlets available. When you're out there, are you just walking around? Do you have chances to talk to people, possibly getting some revolutionary working class perspectives in there? Or is it basically just walking around angry, camping out and being messed with by the cops?

I only made it to the occupation twice, on November 20th and 21st. There was for sure a lot of milling about, impromptu speeches, conversations around the fire, etc. I'm not sure about revolutionary working class perspective, but I gave my opinion in the couple of conversations I had. Of course, there was a bit of nervousness because of the online racist harassment that ended up with 4 suburban boys coming to the occupation and shooting people the next night, plus a couple of days before I made it there, there was some street fighting between protestors and police.

So, like I mentioned before, the 4th Precinct occupation was raided and evicted early this morning. This is what it looks like now.

Later this evening, there were two marches/rallies. The first one was organized by Black Lives Matter and they occupied the inside of city hall for a few hours. Picture reminds me of Madison...

Around the same time, the Twin Cities IWW General Defense Committee1 and the Twin Cities IWW African Peoples Caucus2 launched a smaller march to a bowling alley on the NorthEast side of Minneapolis. The sheriff was having a fundraiser and we were tipped off that Bob Kroll, the head of the Minneapolis police union, was there. Apparantly, about 15 minutes before we got there, the top cops were escorted out, the fundraiser was cancelled, and the doors were locked.

BLM left City Hall and met us outside the bowling alley fundraiser and we blocked off the intersection for another 30 minutes.

We then headed to the Minneapolis police union HQ. They had it on lockdown. They even put a tarp over their sign in either a comical attempt to fool us or to keep their name out of the news.

We took that whole street.

• 1A seperate, but related, arm of the IWW that locally, focuses on antifascist work and picket trainings, marshalls our marches, etc.
• 2Semi-formal group of black IWWs who came to the union through prisoner organizing and/or disillusionment in official BLM stuff

County attorney refused to press charges against the two officers.

http://m.startribune.com/No-charges-against-police-in-Jamar-Clark-shooting-death/373979481/

There's some rallies and marches tonight. People at work talkin about the North Side gonna be burning down but I don't buy it.

One of the major grocery stores on the North Side closed for the day, supposedly because of fears of looting.

The county attorney has released a ton of evidence related to the Jamar Clark killing in an attempt to be "transparent". Haven't been able to look through any of it yet.

Yesterday, after the county attorney's announcement, people gathered at the spot where Clark was killed.

At some point, people blockaded the 2 streets on that block with park benches and newspaper boxes. Police advanced on the area. Not sure what transpired, but the stuff in the street was removed and the police left.

A little later in the day, two marches, one from the North Side, and one from a park near downtown, happened.

The marches converged at the Government Plaza, downtown.

After that some of the crowd headed to the 4th Precinct, but think they eventually dispersed.