People in Minneapolis have been protesting the murder of a black man, Jamar Clark, near the police where the shooter worked (but of course the killer was a police officer — that’s how these things work). And of course there have been white people counter-protesting, and some of them have been white supremacists, out-and-out racists, and just generally the kinds of terrible people who embarrass us all. And, unfortunately, some of them are strutting around with guns.
So last night, some of the armed racist assholes opened fire on the protest, and then fled, as cowards do.
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.”
Minnesota is one of the more liberal states in this country, and that that can happen here, and be unsurprising, tells you how deep the racism goes. It doesn’t help that the Republican party brownshirts have been fostering an atmosphere of resentment and hatred on the national level, either.
Syrian terrorists, right?
I’m so heartsick just hearing about it. I wish I could go and just HELP out or do something.
And comments everywhere that the ‘law abiding’ white guys (one of whom wore a mask, body armour and an open carry weapon) were merely defending themselves from the ‘mob’ of ‘scary black people’. And perhaps the really terrifying thing is – they just might get away with that as a defence – because nothing is scarier than multiple black people in a street. Not even gun toting, body armoured, mask wearing white supremacists – nuh-uh.
Well, the gun toting, body armored, badge wearing surpemacists who pepper sprayed the group afterwards could try to use that defense, I guess.
For a group that is so scary, we manage to be so peaceful. I swear if we were as violent as racists claim we are, this entire shit would have been burnt to the ground a long time ago.
So this somehow isn’t an act of domestic terrorism because magic Whiteness, right?
It seems that, in order to be a terrorist in the modern US political climate, you really need to be firing at random into (or otherwise attacking) a crowd consisting at least partially of White people while not being White yourself. Wearing a suicide bomb belt being an optional extra.
And yet allegedly institutional racism totally isn’t a thing…
Jamar Clark, not Jamal.
Gregory Greenwood (@ #5), you got it oh so right.
Thus demonstrating a point that needs to be made more often— the “legal guns” interpretation of the Second Amendment explicitly contradicts the plain literal meaning of the First Amendment.
The right to free speech simply cannot exist when you are under constant threat of being shot to death for expressing an opinion or attending a peaceful demonstration.
I’m thankful that Gov. Dayton back in 2012 vetoed the Republican-backed “Stand Your Ground” bill in Minnesota. I don’t doubt the three armed white men who shot five unarmed blacks last night would invoke it if it had.
The “Stuff you missed in history class” podcast has done a few episodes in which they discuss “race riots.” There have been some pretty horrific ones. And, as you’d expect, it’s usually a bunch of white guys that attack native american or african americans. Some of the white race riots have featured the national guard or the police pitching in. In others, such as Ferguson, the aggressors are the police and the national guard has to be deployed to rein the cops in.
Ah, yes, one of the incidents the SYMIHC podcast talked about was:
http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-wall-street-405
deputized whites killed over 300 african americans and burned 1200+ homes.
This is why these sort of protests should be illegal. Showing up armed and standing near your perceived enemies is intimidation pure and simple because you’re threatening to do what the shooters did here.
qwints, #11
Damn, those images are scary! I’m genuinely starting to fear a little bit for myself and my family (especially living in the South). They don’t go to the mosque but fuck, that must be horrifying.
Again, as horrible as white supremacist ideology those idiots have 1st amendment right as well. From all accounts it was the BLM protesters who attempted to get physical and that’s when someone decided to defend themselves.
laurian, maybe you should take that racist bullshit somewhere else?
The armed racist assholes were all christians, right? So that makes it okay. Furthermore, they were probably white christians who will tell you that they are not racists.
We should have polled them to see who they were planning to vote for in the presidential race.
They shot unarmed people and then ran away.
laurian @13:
Take that racist fucking bullshit over to Stormfront. It’s NOT welcome here.
Laurian, Stormfront is not “all accounts,” by a long shot. Go crawl back under your rock where you belong. The 1st Amendment allows for free speech. It doesn’t allow for free attempted murder.
Great Gobs of Green Gunk, Batman, have any of you done a look-see at the headlines?
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Article 1:
Article 2:
Article 3:
Notice anything missing? Like who got shot? Like who did the shooting?
In the middle of a context where Black people are specifically protesting how Black folk are seen as threatening and violent even when they are not and the consequences that flow from that, including but not limited to excessive police violence there are no details in the headlines that say the race of the people shooting or the race of the people shot. Nothing says whether it was protesters hit or “taunters” (the mere mention of whom is the most explicit any of these headlines get). Nothing says whether the taunters were other Black folk who think they the protesters are idiots for standing outside in cold whether or, y’know, white fucking supremacists. You’d think that in the context of demonstrations about racial stereotypes generating misimpressions that are then used to justify shootings, the fucking newspapers would like to avoid any, y’know, ambiguous information that can be filled in by stereotypes to create misimpressions.
Fuck this shit. Now I have to go to more major newspapers and cull through more headlines. This is going to be really widespread, isn’t it?
Not as far as they’re concerned.
I assume the media is already going full-force with a smear campaign of the victims.
@doublereed. #20:
That’s what I’m afraid of.
Police have arrested two so far in connection with the shootings – a 23 year old white male and a 32 year old hispanic male.
Jezebel shows how to write this headline, it wasn’t hard:
@laurian #20: If it had been self-defense, one should reasonably expect the shooters to call and turn themselves in after reaching safety instead of leaving police to search for them.
From australia’s “the age”:
Five Black Lives Matter protesters shot in Minneapolis as police search for white men
Sydney Morning Herald:
Five Black Lives Matter protesters shot in Minneapolis as police search for white men
From the Guardian:
The men who shot at the Minneapolis protesters want to scare all black people
From Canada’s “global news.ca”:
Minneapolis police seek gunmen after 5 people shot at Black Lives Matter protest
The Manitoban paper, the Brandon Sun:
Minneapolis police arrest 2 in shooting of 5 people at Black Lives Matter demonstration
Jeez, is it like the farther you get form the US the easier it is to write this headline?
Let’s look inside the US, but taking only websites that also publish print editions of a daily paper:
Washington Post:
Five Black Lives Matter protesters shot in Minneapolis; police arrest two suspects
Whoops, but now the Washington Post has changed its headline:
5 Black Lives Matter protesters shot and wounded in Minneapolis
===> Is this infighting among protesters? What?
The Daily News:
Five shot near Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis, protesters blame white supremacists wearing bulletproof vests
===> Oh, yeah, “protesters blame”. Is that a sick joke and a dog whistle for your audience, Murdoch’s Daily News, or just a dog whistle?
BTW: the first two paragraphs of the story in the Daily News?
Fuck you, Daily News.
Here’s the Boston Globe’s most Google-prominent coverage:
Morning Opinion Digest: Black Lives Matter protesters shot, Silicon Valley suicides, and more…
===> Gee. Thanks.
Ironically on their “top 10 trending articles” sidebar, # 8 is:
When the truth ends up on an editing room floor
===> bwahahahahahaha
The LaCrosse Tribune (is this a daily?) has an updated story, don’t know if the headline has changed from whatever it might have been originally.
Update: Police seek suspects after shooting near Minneapolis protest
I’m not getting other results from daily papers in the US on Google – at least, my search terms are now picking up other things, like the shooting that originally spawned the 4th precinct protest, instead of this incident.
However, there’s this from MinnPost.com (I don’t know if this org has an off-line paper or not, and if it’s a daily or not if they do):
Five Black Lives Matter protesters shot near encampment
===> Not so bad, considering. At least we know it’s protesters that got shot. All they left out was the racism. Y’know. Nothing important.
More signs of racism from Republican sources in Minnesota:
Link
Buried under the headline on the Star-Tribune’s site: Police arrest second suspect in shooting at 4th Precinct Black Lives Matter protest
Yeah, maybe all the victims being black and the shooters being white/Hispanic anti-black demonstrators might have had something to do with it YA THINK
Crip Dyke @25,
The Daily News isn’t the Murdoch rag; that would be the NY Post. Surprisingly enough, while the Post has the story deeply buried on its website, they do characterize it much more accurately:
Three white male suspects sought after Black Lives Matter activists shot at protest
@What a Maroon:
Thank you for the correction on Daily News/Daily Post. And yes, surprising as it may be, Murdoch’s paper did craft a better headline.
@ Crip Dyke:
Thanks for the headline round-up, very … informative. Have you come across any media outlets calling a group of three men “lone wolves” yet?
The case for self defense sounds fairly strong. From the Raw Story:
“Witnesses say the gunmen were trying to record demonstrators’ faces on cell phone video shortly before opening fire, and the two groups argued.
Then a group of protesters charged at the men and demanded they remove their masks, but witnesses said the men shouted back, “f*ck no,” and continued recording cell phone video.
A demonstrator, who spoke on camera with a mask covering his face, said one of the men was carrying a Black Lives Matter sign.
The witness said a demonstrator came out of the crowd and punched one of the white men, and another man stepped back and reached toward his waistband.
“I was like, he’s got a gun, he’s got a gun,” said a second witness, who also covered his face on camera.
The demonstrators said the three men then walked away from the crowd and through a gate, where another protester punched one of the men, and the three men ran off with several protesters behind.
“I was like, they’ve got a gun — don’t follow them,” the second witness said. “Don’t chase them — they’re reaching for a gun.”
The witnesses said the men then stopped in an area where no cameras were present, turned around and opened fire on the six protesters who had been chasing them.””
So far we can piece together from these facts that:
(Group S: Those that shot)
(Group P: BLM Protestors)
>Group S was filming on public property.
>A confrontation between Group S and P occurred.
>Group P attacked group S by punching them.
>Group S attempted to leave.
>Group S was attacked again by a punch.
>Group S then attempted to retreat to safety.
>Group P pursued Group S as they retreated.
>Having met the duty to retreat, being faced with a disparity of force, and previously confronted with violence Group S used engaged in defensive firearm use.