Free Republic

On Sunday afternoon, a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce their commitment to disbanding the city’s embattled police department, which has endured relentless criticism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, on May 25. “We’re here because we hear you. We are here today because George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police. We are here because here in Minneapolis and in cities across the United States it is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety is not keeping our communities safe,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa...

A former Black Lives Matter activist is making stunning accusations against fellow agitators in an unprompted YouTube video.Trey Turner, who says he protested police killings in St. Paul, Minnesota, created a video to expose what he learned while he was active with the group.Turner said he joined Black Lives Matter after the shooting of Jamar Clark last March, and that he was a part of the “4th Precinct shutdown.” He said he joined because activists insisted the movement was peaceful and “didn’t hate whites.” According to Turner, he was an active participant in the protests at the governor’s mansion after...

Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau says the two officers involved in the shooting death of Jamar Clark in November 2015 did not violate Minneapolis Police Department policies and says she supports their actions.   The statement came as Harteau gave an update on the internal affairs investigation into the actions of Officers Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze on Friday afternoon. “The officers will not be criminally charged, and we concluded there were no violations of MPD policy,” Harteau said. Harteau said the use of force review is "extensive" and outlined the many steps investigators took before they came to the...

Federal investigators will release their report Wednesday on whether two Minneapolis police officers violated the civil rights of Jamar Clark when he was shot to death during an altercation in November, according to sources with knowledge of the case. Mayor Betsy Hodges asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Clark’s death, which triggered massive protests and gained nationwide attention. The report will be made public during an 11 a.m. news conference at the FBI headquarters in Brooklyn Center, sources said. The officers, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, are white, and Clark was black. The federal probe likely considered either...

No charges will be filed against the two Minneapolis officers involved in the shooting death last fall of Jamar Clark, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Wednesday. Freeman disclosed his decision in a downtown Minneapolis news conference two weeks after bypassing the more common option of letting a grand jury make a charging determination. Freeman brought with him to the highly anticipated announcement evidence from the investigation into Clark’s death on a North Side street as well as video that law enforcement collected from the scene that night. Freeman said the evidence supports the officers' account of the confrontation, in...

Black Lives Matter protesters vowed Monday to press on with their plan to demonstrate at the Mall of America on the busy shopping day before Christmas Eve, despite the mall's efforts to stop them. The mall requested a temporary restraining order barring the group from staging its protest Wednesday over the police killing of a black man last month. It is hoping to prevent the type of disruption that thousands of protesters caused last year, when stores had to temporarily close and dozens of people were arrested. [...] Those behind this year's planned protest at the Mall of America want...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Officers on Thursday cleared away a protest encampment that sprang up in front of a Minneapolis precinct following the fatal police shooting of a black man last month, arresting eight demonstrators and erecting a fence to dissuade others from trying to return. Police ordered around 50 chanting demonstrators to disperse at about 4 a.m. and soon began removing tents and equipment while firefighters extinguished campfires. Dump trucks carried away tents and supplies while crews removed makeshift barricades that had been blocking the street in front of the station and erected a high fence to keep people off...