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.

The shooting occurred late Monday night about a block from the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct, where protesters have held daily demonstrations since the fatal Nov. 15 police shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark.

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.

A police spokesman confirmed to The Washington Post that those shot had been protesting outside the police station before the incident....

Five protesters were shot late Monday night near the Black Lives Matter encampment at the Fourth Precinct police station in north Minneapolis, according to police.

Those who were shot sustained non-life-threatening injuries, said police spokesman John Elder in a statement.

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.

The shootings occurred at 10:45 p.m. on Morgan Avenue N. about a block north of the precinct station.

Nov. 19: Congressman Keith Ellison and other elected officials spoke at a news conference across the street from the 4th Precinct headquarters Thursday night in Minneapolis. At left was Black Lives Matter organizer Lena Gardner.

The attackers fled. No arrests had been made by midnight Monday. Police said via their Twitter feed that they are searching for three white male suspects.

The gunshot victims were taken to North Memorial Medical Center and Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), deputy police chief Medaria Arradondo said at the scene.

A person at the scene said one of the victims had been shot in the stomach, and was undergoing surgery overnight at HCMC.

Jie Wronski-Riley said angry protesters moved the men 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.”

“I am obviously appalled that white supremacists would open fire on nonviolent, peaceful protesters,” said Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, who returned to the site after the shootings.

The protesters, angry over the fatal police shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark on Nov. 15, have maintained a presence outside the police station ever since.

Eddie Sutton, Jamar’s brother, issued this statement early Tuesday morning in response to the shootings:

“Thank you to the community for the incredible support you have shown for our family in this difficult time. We appreciate Black Lives Matter for holding it down and keeping the protests peaceful. But in light of tonight’s shootings, the family feels out of imminent concern for the safety of the occupiers, we must get the occupation of the 4th precinct ended and onto the next step.”

Having shot five people, the attackers escaped in what looked like a black Toyota SUV, according to Nimo Omar, who was also at the protest.

After the shots, everything was “very chaotic”, Omar said. Several people, including Sumaya Moallin and Oluchi Omeoga, ran back to the precinct to ask the police for help.

Moallin said they needed a squad car and an ambulance. “He looked at me and he said: ‘Call 911,’” she told the Guardian. “I said: ‘I thought you were 911.’ Then he looked at me directly and said: ‘This is what you guys wanted.’”

“Six [officers] were outside [the precinct building],” she continued. “They all just shuffled back into the door. They were not making eye contact ... I pleaded a good amount of time....”

Rachel Bean, who had been a little way back when the shooting occurred and hid behind a tree, said that she was one of the first to Martin’s brother, who was bleeding heavily from his stomach. She has first-aid training, and attempted to stem the flow of blood with some shirts. She was also on the phone with paramedics.

A “chaotic” 15 or 20 minutes passed, Bean said, with the crowd’s anger at the police’s refusal to offer aid growing. “I felt powerless,” Omeoga said. “But the whole reason me and Jie [Wronski-Riley] were chasing around was to de-escalate.” Another witness, Moallin, said that it was more like 10 minutes.

Then the police arrived at the scene in force, in full riot gear. Bean was still tending to Martin’s brother’s stomach wound when they released mace into people’s faces, she told the Guardian. “I said, ‘I called the EMS, you don’t have to mace everyone’,” she said. “The officer said ‘fuck you’ or ‘shut the fuck up’ or something like that.”

She said that attitude was representative of the behavior of other officers she interacted with after the attack. “The idea that you would mace a group of people that just had bullets fired at them – that’s the opposite of responsible.”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015 ... amar-clark