Although the police successfully dealt with Wednesday’s protests, new actions on the legislative front may be needed to take a pro-active stance against Black Lives Matter’s disruptions, wrote Walter Hudson.
Television footage showed protesters chanting, “Shut it down!”
Meanwhile, California Highway Patrol said it arrested nine female protesters blocking southbound traffic on the 101 freeway near the San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday. Once protesters were told they were required to leave, police acted to clear the mall in compliance with the law.
“Today, on one of the busiest days of the holiday season, black communities across the United States are taking fearless actions to impede the flow of goods and commerce with peaceful protests to call for an immediate overhaul of the justice system, both locally and nationally that will demand accountability for police, removal of grand juries in cases involving police shootings, an immediate halt to militarized police units and weapons, and extensive review of racialized police practices in black neighborhoods”, the group said. They also closed down checkpoints to keep BLM supporters from entering secure areas.
Miski Noor, a protest organizer, says “the mall was a decoy“.
Organizers hope the Christmas Eve demonstration will be a repeat of another Chicago protest when hundreds of people disrupted shopping on Michigan Avenue on Black Friday, Fox News reported.
Some protesters then went to a nearby light-rail train station to head to the airport, where demonstrators temporarily blocked access to a terminal.
Dayton questioned the need for such a demonstration, noting that federal and state investigations were ongoing into the death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police responding to an assault complaint. “Because we will drag you out of that office for justice”. He says that was done to prevent protesters from rushing through them and forcing an evacuation of the gate areas. Another arrest was made on unrelated charges, the mall said.
Neither mall officials nor Bloomington police said what security measures were put in place to prepare, though special event staff searched bags at every mall entrance before the rally.
The mall had sought a court order blocking the planned protest.
Following last month’s killing of unarmed black man Jamar Clark, hundreds of protesters gathered on Wednesday to march on the Bloomington, Minnesota’s Mall of America, which resulted in at least 13 arrests for trespassing, disorderly conduct, failure to obey lawful order, unlawful assembly and obstruction of the legal process with force.
On Wednesday, Gov. Mark Dayton said that he “remains sympathetic to the concerns of Black Lives Matter”, but also felt the Hennepin County judge’s ruling had established conclusively that the mall had the right to bar protesters from its property.
