Click The Pic
Posted on 06/24/2018 6:03:57 PM PDT by ButThreeLeftsDo
Minneapolis police fatally shot a black man they say was armed with a handgun Saturday evening on the city’s north side, sparking a wave of protests over the weekend. The shooting, which is being investigated by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, took place about 5:30 p.m. after at least one 911 caller reported seeing a man firing a handgun into the air near 46th and Lyndale avenues, according to a news release issued Sunday by he BCA.
When officers arrived, they found the man sitting on a curb with a woman near the intersection of 48th and Camden avenues, the BCA said in its news release. As the officers began to exit their squad vehicle, the man ran from them, carrying a silver and black handgun, according to the release. After pursuing the man on foot for several blocks, the officers shot him, the release said.
The man, later identified by family members as Thurman Blevins Jr., was pronounced dead at the scene. While body cameras worn by the officers involved recorded the shooting, squad vehicle cameras did not, the news release said.
The BCA said its investigators found a black and silver handgun at the scene.
“BCA agents are conducting interviews with witnesses and incident participants,” the news release said. “The BCA will release additional details, including the names of the officers who discharged their weapons, once both of the officers have provided interviews. Both officers are on standard administrative leave.”
The BCA will turn over its findings to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Purported eyewitnesses have offered conflicting accounts of the shooting, with some saying they don’t believe Blevins had a gun.
Minneapolis resident Robert Lang said he heard and saw much of what transpired in the alley directly behind his house.
He had just finished mowing his lawn and was putting the mower away when he saw a police squad with flashing lights but no siren race down Bryant and veer into an alley off 48th Avenue North, Lang said.
He said he heard yelling and moved towards the alley but thought better of coming around the corner of his garage when he heard voices shouting, repeatedly, “Drop the gun!”
Lang said he heard two to three shots and, after a short delay, another nine to 10 shots.
A few seconds later, he stepped out from around his garage and saw a man lying face-up in a pool of blood, his head jutting into Lang’s driveway, with a handgun about a foot away from the man’s right hand.
An officer ran up and around the body toward the handgun, kicking it away, Lang said, noting that is sounded like the officer also called out, “Clear!” Lang said he saw at least two cars in the alley with bullet damage.
Minneapolis NAACP president Leslie Badue said in a Facebook post, “Eye witnesses stated he was killed while running away from the officers. The witnesses say that he was sitting on the curb with his girlfriend and baby. The cup that he was drinking can still be seen at the scene.”
Badue called for “full transparency” and the release of footage from officers’ body cameras.
During a protest that drew about 300 people to the police department’s fourth precinct Sunday afternoon, a car stopped in the middle of the road and a man got out and yelled that he had Blevins’ father with him. The two men got out of the vehicle and were surrounded by people immediately.
“We want to thank you for doing this,” said Manuel Moore, who identified himself as Blevins’ uncle. “We are on our way to a memorial service at the Elks.”
Moore and a man he identified as Blevins’ father, Thurman Moore, said they were on the way to the memorial service for Blevins’ sister who had died last week of liver issues.
“That’s just too much tragedy for one family,” Manuel Moore said.
“We don’t know the significance of what happened, but we appreciate everything that you are doing here today because black lives matter,” he said. “We just want to know the truth. No one deserves to be shot down like a dog. We know he made some bad decisions but we want everything to come to light.
When a reporter asked if Blevins had a gun at the time of the shooting, Manuel Moore said. “We don’t know. We don’t know everything yet.”
He said he was hoping to find out more from investigators soon.
“We’re going to review the video,” he said. “We’re going to review the body … because whenever a black man gets stopped across America we are getting killed.”
One woman who spoke at the protest, Roxanne O’Brien, said she’d heard reports that police had planted a gun at the scene.
“Even if he did have a gun, why is he dead?” she said to the crowd.
O’Brien said her stomach was in knots about the shooting. “Every day our community has to worry about white terrorist acts,” she said.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arredondo showed up at the protest and was standing off to the side until reporters noticed him and swarmed him. He spoke in a quiet voice about being respectful to the family that was mourning the loss of Blevins and that he expected the BCA to release more information on the shooting soon. But protestors grew angry and accused him of holding his own press conference, until eventually several of them approached him, telling him he should come over to where the microphone was.
Once there, Nekima Levy-Pounds, an activist and former president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, addressed the police chief telling him that the protest was not a “personal attack” against him, but one against a systematic problem in the department.
“There’s been some level of trust in the department so you’ve done what other chiefs have been unable to do,” she said.
But it’s not enough, she said.
She called for the shooting to be investigated by an outside, third party, that wasn’t from Minnesota. She also demanded investigators release the names and histories of the officers involved in the shooting, and the camera footage of the shooting.
“We know that you have limited capacity now that it’s in the jurisdiction of the BCA,” she told the chief. “But we’re asking you to use your influence.”
Several of the speakers at the protest had lost family or loved ones in officer involved shootings.
Todd Schuman, a member of Justice for Justine said that it had been nearly one year since Justine Damond had been killed by Minneapolis police. Damon, an Australian native, had been shot in the alley of her Fulton Neighborhood home after she called 911 to report a possible assault.
The officer who shot her was indicted on a charge of third-degree murder.
Schuman said people who think that police shootings only happen in North Minneapolis are wrong.
“I can assure you this can happen anywhere,” he said. Two men who said they were “Junior’s” cousin spoke about how they were ready to do something to stop any more police shootings.
“Nobody is perfect,” one cousin said, “It really hurts. The thing that hurts is that how can we explain this to his children?”
Mayor Jacob Frey canceled plans to march in Sunday morning’s Twin Cities Pride Parade, saying on Twitter, “my attention and work … will be on last night’s shooting. As soon as I am able, I will be joining the community to mourn, to listen, and to provide support.”
Saturday’s shooting is the latest high-profile police shooting in the Twin Cities area in recent years. In July 2017, Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a 40-year-old white Australian woman, was fatally shot by Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor in South Minneapolis.
In July 2016, 32-year-old Philando Castile was killed by an officer during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights after he told the officer he was armed.
In November 2015, a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed 24-year-old Jamar Clark during a struggle in which the officer said Clark grabbed his partner’s weapon.
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison said in a statement on Saturday that his thoughts are with Blevins’ family, friends and community.
“While we do not yet know all the details of the police shooting in North Minneapolis tonight, we know that it has resulted in the tragic death of another member of our community,” Ellison said. We need answers, and I hope that body camera footage will provide additional clarity in the days to come. Our community has faced this trauma too many times. All Minnesotans deserve to feel safe in their communities.”
On Twitter, Frey posted a lengthy statement calling the shooting a tragedy, “no matter what transpired in the moments leading up to” it.
“Regardless of what happened tonight, too many times, people from across the Twin Cities have been stung by the pain of a life lost during an encounter with law enforcement,” Frey wrote. “The historical trauma inflicted on communities of color is never far from nearly every part of our lives. Tonight we grieve as our memories are stirred by a now too familiar feeling – the loss of someone’s son, brother, friend, and neighbor.” “Strained relations between law enforcement officials and the communities they serve – especially communities of color – have exacted a toll on the very soul of our city, our region, and this nation,” Frey added. “My heart is heavy knowing that tonight in Minneapolis, we mark the beginning of another chapter in a painful history.”
An evening vigil in memory of Blevins was also planned.
Anything for a protest march.
““Even if he did have a gun, why is he dead?” she said to the crowd.”
Oh I dunno...to shoot whitey?
“Every day our community has to worry about white terrorist acts,”...
WTH?????
Yeah, that seems to be an ongoing theme among those that are totally clueless.
They should have shot the gun out of his hand.
Welcome to North Minneapolis!
Last year when the POS somali cop shot the white Australian woman in Minneapolis there were no protests. Weird, right?
“They should have shot the gun out of his hand.”
LOL the clowns thought we were in Dodge city 200 years ago..
No big surprise, was it????
“”””They should have shot the gun out of his hand.””””””
It works in the movies.
“That’s just too much tragedy for one family,” Manuel Moore said.
(Sister died of ‘liver issues.’)*
Here’s an idea: Quit raising and/or tolerating unlawful, loser animals in your own FAMILY.
Problem solved; no one has to die while ARMED, RUNNING from the Police!
*Hep-C from illegal drug use or too much drank? Which was it? Asking for a friend.
My wife takes the light rail home from work through St Paul and Minneapolis. Guaranteed she will be late tomorrow night because they will start fires on the tracks. Always happens.
A big part of the “protesters” are just out there to start sh*t...They use the shooting as an excuse...
I wish her safe travel....
Not at the time.
But she was remembered during the BLM protest that interrupted the Pride Parade today.
FWIW.
Don’t know, Di.
Could have been anything.
The fact that the guy was a armed danger to the community seems to have been lost...as usual.
And the number 1 thing you won’t hear Keith Ellison say...
“I guess it was a gun. We all thought it was a black and silver 9mm bottle.”
Imagine that...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.