By Minnesota Daily Staff
After a violent night left five injured, demonstrations over the Nov. 15 police shooting of Jamar Clark continued Tuesday.
Black Lives Matter Minneapolis organized a march from the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct after the shooting of five protesters late Monday. Demonstrators called for less police violence and the release of videos taken when officers shot Clark.
Among those who trekked from North Minneapolis was a sizeable group of University of Minnesota students, who joined the marchers after student-led rallies on campus Tuesday.
Minneapolis p olice arrested four suspects Tuesday in relation to the shooting, two of whom turned themselves in. Police later released one suspect.
Michael McDowell, organizer for Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, said police should have responded to Monday’s shooting faster.
“We ran up on the scene and saw all those folks on the ground, and then probably like five minutes later the police came,” he said.
Wesley Martin, a friend of Clark, was one of five injured in the late-night shooting. He was shot in the leg.
He said he followed a group of “shady” men away from the police building on Morgan Avenue North with a friend after the men yelled racial slurs at them.
Then, the men turned and opened fire into a crowd once they were out of sight of the police station, Martin said.
Still, he marched — cane in hand — with the rest of the crowd more than 2 miles to City Hall Tuesday.
“Ain’t no bullet going to stop me,” he said. “I [could] be in a wheelchair, and I’ll still be out here.”
McDowell said more than 1,000 people turned out for Tuesday’s march. He said BLM plans to continue the protest at the precinct building and have events planned until Friday.
University protest
Some students left classes Tuesday to join the march after protests on campus.
Zaire Ishmael, a global studies senior who attended the protest at Northrop, said demonstrations are a way to begin a conversation but won’t fix persistent issues.
“There needs to be a revolutionary change to the meaning of a community servant,” he said. “It needs to be someone without a gun who knows the communities.”
Student leaders such as Manuel Berduc, a Students for a Democratic Society officer, organized the walkout and transportation to the city’s north side.
“Almost everyone is here,” he said, adding that they expected more students to join the protest as the day continued.
Berduc said he was at the precinct the night of the shooting, which led him to organize protests with other student groups.
Roozbeh Shirazi, an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development, joined protesters on their journey downtown.
He said police violence toward civilians is “unconscionable” and he felt the march was a proper response.
“This is democracy,” Shirazi said. “This is citizenship.”
