Five Shot In Minneapolis

We are offered conflicting narratives about a shooting in Minneapolis. Here is the WaPo with two versions [with UPDATES below]:

Five Black Lives Matter protesters shot in Minneapolis; police searching for white suspects

By Michael E. Miller and Lindsey Bever  November 24 at 8:53 AM

Simmering racial tensions have boiled over yet again after several men shot five people who had been protesting the recent police killing of an African American man in Minneapolis.

...

Police announced on social media that five people suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds and that officers were searching for “3 white male suspects” who fled the scene.

Here is the first version the WaPo presents, my emphasis throughout, and let's call this version WaPo1:

Details of the shooting, however, remain murky.

Oluchi Omeoga, a young protester who has participated in the demonstrations since last Monday, said she witnessed the incident.

Omeoga and her fellow protesters saw three people wearing masks who “weren’t supposed to be there,” she told the Associated Press. When the three interlopers left the crowd and began walking down the street, a few protesters followed them. But when the three men reached a corner, she said, they pulled out weapons and fired at the protesters.

A second WaPo version cites the Minneapolis Start Tribune; let's call this WaPo2:

“A group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights,” Miski Noor, a Black Lives Matter organizer, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Police have not confirmed or denied Noor’s claim.

Noor said the white men “opened fire on about six protesters,” after the protesters tried to herd the men away from the protest area.

Here is what we see in the Star Tribune. Call it Strib1:

Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said “a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights.”

One of the three counterdemonstrators wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening.

When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they “opened fire on about six protesters,” hitting five of them. Jaehnert said she heard four gunshots.

Three white supremacists, a dozen protestors. And the mood?

Jie Wronski-Riley said angry protesters moved the counter-demonstrators away from the encampment at the police station. Wronski-Riley heard what sounded like firecrackers and thought, “surely they’re not shooting human beings.” Two young black men on either side of him were hit, one in the back and leg, the other in the arm.

At least two of the three men who had been taunting protesters were firing guns, said Wronski-Riley, who described the incident as “really chaotic, really fast.”

Whites taunting protestors, who become angry so a dozen protestors "herd" them to a dark area. I assume their defense will be that they felt threatened, and that their previous actions were all legal as free speech, free assembly, and so on.

Here is the NY Times, version, NYT1:

Miski Noor, an organizer at the Minneapolis arm of Black Lives Matter, said the shooting happened as demonstrators were escorting three masked men who had been behaving suspiciously away from the site of the rally, where people have gathered for more than a week to protest the Nov. 15 shooting of Jamar Clark, 24.

When they reached a dark area, the men turned around and opened fire on the demonstrators before fleeing, Ms. Noor said.

That is basically WaPo2 with "escort" substituted for "herd". I know I would rather be 'escorted' than 'herded' and I guess Times reporter Ashley Southall feels the same way. Since the word "herd" is not in quotes in the source Strib1, that may have been an appropriate editorial judgment.

More from the Times:

During a telephone call to the precinct, police officers were overheard reviewing surveillance video and describing a masked white man pulling out a firearm, a description that appeared to align with accounts of the shooting that witnesses had given to Ms. Noor. In accounts given on social media and to Ms. Noor, witnesses described the gunmen as three men, two white and one Asian, wearing masks and bulletproof vests.

Ms. Noor said that groups of men had been showing up to the demonstrations and “acting shady” since Friday. Witnesses reported that the men were filming protesters and refusing to answer questions about why they were there, she said. In response, the group put together a safety committee to watch for potential agitators and escort them away as a preventive measure, she said.

What, an Asian white supremacist? Standards are evolving in the Little Apple.

As to "acting shady", I don't know what that means but I know that at Mizzou there was a call for 'muscle over here' when one (Asian) reporter who appeared to be unsympathetic approached the protestors' 'safe space' in the middle of campus. Whether the Minneapolis protestors had a similar mindset is an undeveloped theme here. But 'escorting away' or 'herding away' people who are filming, taunting and asking questions does not sound wholly legal to me; asking for a police intervention would be the appropriate response.

That said, if three guys are in bullet proof vests, carrying sidearms and 'taunting' the protestors one might argue they were approaching this situation with an aggressive mindset and were looking for trouble.

And do keep in mind - this is Minneapolis, so the odds are good that the protestors are a mix of white, black and other. That seems to be confirmed on this video, anyway.

SINCE YOU ASK: The WaPo1 version - the whites supremacists were walking away, then turned and fired on a few people following them - is the current candidate to take hold as the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" version. Since BLM spokespeople aren't advancing that line, we doubt it will take hold anywhere other than the WaPo.

However, look for the dozen angry herders on the safety committee to be whittled down to three elderly nuns and a retired school crossing guard by the end of the week. Plus the people who got shot.

Not to put the reporters in an awkward spot or blame the victims, but... if the shooters are likely to claim self-defense, is it worth asking whether any of the shooting victims have a history of violence? One would hope the protest organizers aren't that foolish, but who knows? In any case, look for that line of pushback to be developed by Rush et al.

UPDATE: TWO MEN ARRESTED SO FAR: Police have arrested one white man and one Hispanic (likely the 'Asian', but let's not leap to conclusions. And then released; this story is shifting as I type). This Strib story has names for five shooting victims, so I imagine their backgrounds will emerge.

Black Lives Matter protesters move downtown; 1 of 2 shooting suspects released

Protesters marched from the 4th precinct to downtown Minneapolis Tuesday afternoon. A 23-year-old white man was arrested in Bloomington at 11:20 a.m. A second shooting suspect has been released.

Police have arrested two men they have been seeking in connection with a shooting at the Black Lives Matter encampment Monday night.

Minneapolis police said they arrested a 23-year-old white man in Bloomington at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday. A second shooting suspect arrested in south Minneapolis at 12:05 p.m. has been released. The search for other suspects continues.

Authorities are weighing whether to treat the shooting of five people protesting near the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fourth Precinct station Monday night as a hate crime, sources familiar with the investigation said Tuesday morning.

The victims, all black men — ages 19 through 43 — were taken to hospitals with noncritical injuries, according to police.

Minnesota is not a stand your ground state but we may yet see the self-defense hate crime play out.

As protesters took turns speaking, one of the shooting victims returned to the scene, leaning heavily on a cane. Wesley Martin, 43, said he was shot after he and a group of others chased the suspected gunmen toward an alley off Morgan Avenue.

The suspects have variously been "herded", "escorted" and now "chased".

“I’ve been out here every night since it started and you know when people look suspicious,” Martin said.

The bullet ripped through his right knee, Martin said. He said his 19-year-old brother Teven King was also shot, in the stomach.

As Martin spoke, his cousin Leroy Williams, nodded in agreement.

“Really we could get violent,” Williams said. “And there’s a lot of us that are willing to go to jail (for this). But we’re not. We’re keeping the peace.”

Violent towards whom?

Williams also said that one of Clark’s cousins, Cameron Clark, 24, was also among the shooting victims.

Carrie Brown, Martin’s cousin, lives down the street from the precinct house and said she and others were cooking dinner for the protesters when “these four white guys walked up … They had masks and they had a briefcase. I thought they were there to donate [something].”

Brown said that someone in the crowd pointed the men out as suspected agitators and the crowd started to chase them away, heading north on Morgan Avenue.

The men got as far as an alley just north of the precinct house when they started shooting, Brown said.

“When we turned around they started to shoot at us from behind,” Brown said.

The shooters appeared to be wearing bulletproof vests under their clothing, she said.

“It was all scary. You wouldn’t expect anything like that. We didn’t have a security details. Everybody here was peaceful. We didn’t expect these psychos.”

“We all were terrorized last night,” Brown added. “I’ve never seen racism like that.”

So now roughly twelve protestors, some of them with a temperment to violence, chased three men towards an ally. But it was only  when the protestors turned back that the three men started shooting, which doesn't really explain the guy who was shot in the stomach. Well, maybe he turned again and ran to the sound of guns.

The defense side is going to see a real opportunity here. Which means the upcoming trial might be as polarizing as the Democrats need it to be.

UPDATE 2: From the Srtrib:

Still, the shootings galvanized protesters, who said Tuesday that the shots rang out after they attempted to drive the men, who they described as “white supremacists,” from the area.

Witnesses to the shootings said they confronted the men before they fired and forced them from the protest area. According to a video interview with two men immediately afterward, the group demanded that the assailants remove their masks. When they refused, a scuffle ensued. As the crowd began to push the men out, shots were fired.

So now we have a scuffle preceding the shooting?

Three suspects are in custody, all seemingly white:

On Tuesday, days after that video went public, four men were arrested in connection with Monday night’s shooting of five protesters a block from the Fourth Precinct headquarters in an act that drew condemnation coast to coast.

Police arrested Allen Lawrence “Lance” Scarsella III, 23, of Lakeville, and a 32-year-old man from Minneapolis, who was later released from custody after police determined he wasn’t at the shooting scene.

Later Tuesday, two more men — Nathan Gustavsson, 21, of Hermantown and Daniel Macey, 26, of Pine City — turned themselves into police and were booked on probable cause assault in connection with the case.

 More from Wesley Martin, a shooting victim:

At 10:41 p.m., three masked men began shouting. Wesley Martin was among those who escorted them away.

Suddenly, shots rang out.

“I heard the N word and that’s when everybody started charging,” he said. “And we get to 14th and Morgan [avenues], and all I heard was pow…pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.”

"Charging", "Scuffle", the N-bomb and a fighting words scenario - this is a self-defense hate crime.

 

Comments

[GMax]

oh yeah First once again

[henry]

The thug crowd got three strikes where they assaulted the dumbshits filming them 2 times without problem... it was the 3rd assault that got them shot.

I

[Thatsa what I heard.]

'Herding'?

[henry]

Hoft (yeah well) has a post with a vid of two BLM witnesses describing the "herding" as more of a working over or punching. The third round was more along the lines of a running chase.

Who knows? Clearly being pale in a declared #blm zone is illegal now.

[Where is the levity this Tuesday?]

Charles Manson turns over in his gravity.

[matt]

So someone seems to have shot down the Russian search and rescue helicopter as well. This isn't going to go well.

When did Minnesota get so wacky?

[GMax]

One more log on a roaring fire? What could it hurt:

A Russian rescue helicopter has been shot down by Syrian rebels while searching for pilots missing after Turkey downed a Russian jet.

The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a government-held area in Syria's Latakia province.

A Syrian insurgent group, which uses U.S. Tow missiles, said its fighters hit the helicopter with an anti-tank missile.

Video footage has emerged online appearing to show the helicopter after it crashed in dense woodland.

Plumes of smoke can be seen coming from the aircraft.

[henry]

There was vid of the tow shot... the helicopter was on the ground rotors not spinning when the tow was shot at it.

[Jim]

The asian white supremacist was heard saying "allahu akbar" before disappearing into the darkness.

[Buckeye]

Not to worry.

Soros will provide firearm bearing muscle to the #blm crowd in Minneapolis.

[clarice]

I can't keep up with everything in the short time I'm online, but jmh I agree completely with your 5:51 p.m. post last night
Hi, NK!
HB , Tonto

[James D.]

I guess I'm a terrible human being, but I really don't care if these BLM idiots get shot.

They are a harmful, poisonous, destructive group of terrible human beings whom the world would be better without anyway, so I don't see the problem.

[Jeff Dobbs]

matt:
When did Minnesota get so wacky?

Electing Jesse Ventura governor in 1998 might serve as a decent point from which to launch the investigation.

[DebinNC]

Sen. Al Franken - nuff said.

[narciso]

and Governor Target, thanks to the contribution of Minnesota Top Men, were also helpful,

[pagar a bacon, ham and sausage supporter]

"“opened fire on about six protesters,” hitting five of them."

Would it be wrong to point out the differences?

"Year To Date
Shot & Killed: 401
Shot & Wounded: 2306
Total Shot: 2707
Total Homicides: 453"

Race of Victim/Assailant

Race Victim Assailant
Black 348 80
Hispanic 71 19
White/Other 17 9
Police - 7
Unknown 9 -
As of 11/17/15 *Victim metrics only include homicides. Assailant metrics only account for those incidents where either an arrest has been made, part of a murder/suicide, self defense or if it involved the police.

http://heyjackass.com/

[pagar a bacon, ham and sausage supporter]

"When did Minnesota get so wacky?"

http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/refugees-in-u-s-state-drawn-to-welfare-jihad/

IMO

[jpe]

Per Youtube video making the rounds, the "protesters" stated that they were punching the individuals, and then followed them and continued to attack. If that account is accurate - and since it's coming from a protester speaking against interest, there's no reason to think it isn't - there's at least a colorable claim of self-defense.

[sbw]

Matt, posting that someone seems to have shot down the Russian search and rescue helicopter asks: “When did Minnesota get so wacky?”

Answer: When the Russians landed.

[Jane]

Just watched the press conference. Obama said absolutely nothing except Assad has to go - thus alienating Russia further.