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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.
“”””But she was remembered during the BLM protest that interrupted the Pride Parade today”””””
I gsues I missed that part since I wasn’t at the parade.
If anyone, Black, White, or whatever, wants to stay alive simply stop, drop the gun, and comply. ANYONE with a gun is a threat to a cop.
thanks for correction. yes mpls is East not west of washington state. I wouldn’t wear a maga hat in the twin cities. you’d be welcome anyplace outside of a 30 mile radius. the locals outside the cities may even sit down with you snd join you for lunch or shake your hand. Really nice people when you eliminate lefties, naacp, blm, and lgbthsiz. - thats lgbt+ hy, sy, it and zims.. and the peace loving muslims. i forgot the tree huggers who dont cut their lawns in mpls. claim the are helping the city get “ back to nature”. I kid you not. Many many of the homes in south mpls have over grown lawns 3 ft high with weeds!! .
Thank you very much for digging up this tidbit of information!
As I am writing this, only 1 media outlet in the Twin Cities is reporting the fact that he was a felon in possession of a firearm.
I live about 20 miles south of Minneapolis, I am well aware of what nuttery goes on there.
And that’s why I don’t go to Minneapolis.
OVER THE TOP!!!!
THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORKMUSICMAN!!!
Thank YOU for all your posts to make it happen!!!!
Reports finally coming out on local media say that he had SIX (6) felony convictions including assault on a peace officer in 2015, while throwing bodily fluids.
#1 Dad, my butt.
“...because whenever a black man gets stopped across America we are getting killed.”
Not having much luck running, either.
I’ve read all of the local media accounts and here’s what is sticking with me and some of the people at work.
The guy working in his yard hears the cops yelling “drop your gun!”...Several times .
He hears a couple of shots.
Two or three seconds later, he hears eight or nine shots.
Our speculation is that the perp tossed a couple of shots at the LEO’s, and then the LEO’s returned fire, killing the perp.
That’s my prediction.
“That’s my prediction.”
Sounds perfectly logical to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
If "Junior" (a convicted felon) was stupid enough to sit on the curb of a public street, shooting into the air...
1) He probably didn't count the shots he wasted.
2) He was probably too stupid to reload.
3) He probably only had a couple of shots left...
~~~~~~~~~
So -- your scenario sounds about right...
was there a single protest against that Somalian arse cop who shot a totally unarmed young woman in her night clothes across the chest of his fellow cop?....nothing...course she was a whitey so there’s that...
Here’s the latest...
“If Blevins did have a gun, it was not legally permitted because of six felony convictions. One for spitting on and kicking a police officer, two convictions for fleeing officers, illegal possession of a firearm and two convictions for drugs.”
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/06/25/questions-remain-thurman-blevins-shooting-death/
Actually there were quite a few protests. The police chief resigned over the killing.
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