Australian woman visiting the US calls 911 for noise complaint, gets the bullets instead

'Never been about race': black activists on how Minneapolis reacted to Damond shooting

Some questioned whether activists had protested less over the death of a White Australian woman. Friday night’s anger at mayor Betsy Hodges and the departure of the city’s police chief answered that

In the aftermath of the police shooting of Justine Damond, many on the right of the political spectrum asked on social media: “Where are the protests now?”

The claim was clear: when a black cop killed a white woman, Black Lives Matter, or other African American activists pushing for police reform, would not be quick to protest.

That narrative went mainstream on Wednesday, in a piece by CNN writer Doug Criss. Criss noted that a vigil was held for Damond the day after the shooting, but added that “there weren’t widespread protest marches, like the ones Black Lives Matter held last year after Philando Castile’s shooting death at the hands of an officer in nearby Falcon Heights”.

Criss went on to quote David Love, a journalist who writes on race issues whom Criss said had not “seen too many people from the movement express any anger or outrage about the shooting”.

They spoke too soon. Any doubts about the diverse nature of the groups rallying around Damond’s case were answered on Friday, during a media conference Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges held to explain her decision to ask for the resignation of police chief Janeé Harteau in the wake of the Damond shooting.

Hodges was only a few sentences in when protesters began streaming in the door. One of them, John Thompson, a friend of Philando Castile who has become a fixture at protests after Castile’s death, quickly interrupted her, asking her to resign. Soon afterward he and another community activist, Chauntyll Allen, were leading the now crowded room in chants of “If Justine don’t get it, shut it down”, echoing a similar cry used during the protests against Castile’s shooting.

Whatever one thinks about their tactics, the group of protesters that interrupted that media conference on Friday was diverse, with a large contingent of young white protesters and several long-time black activists in the lead. Was this is a new trend that Criss and Love had missed?

The truth is that black activists have been at the forefront since day one.

Last Saturday night, Damond, a 40-year-old spiritual healer from Sydney, Australia, called 911 to report a possible sexual assault. She was in her pyjamas when she approached the Minneapolis squad car that responded. Officer Mohamed Noor, who was in the passenger seat, shot her through the driver’s side window.

About 300 people attended the vigil, near the crime scene, the next day. Cathy Jones, an African American woman who works as a mail carrier by day, was one of the organizers. Following the police shootings of Jamar Clark in 2015 and Philando Castile last year, she marched at protests with Black Lives Matter and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Last week, she went to South Minneapolis soon after hearing of the shooting, to see how she could help.

“I think it’s important because these are things that affect our community every single day,” she said. “It’s never been about race. It’s been about police accountability.”

Mel Reeves, an African-American man who has been a neighborhood activist for more than two decades, was also part of the group that organized the vigil.

“When these incidents happen it’s important to put as much pressure on the system as possible,” he said. “To get answers, to get justice. It’s important to let the system, the power structure, know that people aren’t going to just lay down.”

While it’s impossible to paint activists of color with one brush – they have different approaches, tactics, affiliations and ideologies – those rallying around the Damond shooting share a belief that her death was caused by the kind of police violence they have been working to stop. They also believe that as, community members, they have a duty to show up.

Jason Sole, the president of the Minneapolis NAACP, also attended the vigil. “We felt like just from a humanitarian perspective, we are not only for black people, we are for all people,” he said, “so that’s why it was important for us to come to the ground and just show our faces.”

The influence of such activists could have been missed by outside observers. While they support the larger movement for police reform and racial equity, they do not necessarily fall under the easily Googled banner of “Black Lives Matter”. BLM has a chapter in Minneapolis that has at times been hugely influential. But it is far from the only group working on issues related to police shootings.

Most black activists have also tried to balance speaking out with deference to Damond’s family and the residents of her neighborhood.

“When we are protesting and we rising up against injustice, we want people to support us and help us out but we don’t want them to take the lead,” Sole said. “I didn’t feel it was appropriate at the Minneapolis NAACP to try and take the lead on this.”

Shaun King, a columnist with the New York Daily News who covers police brutality and Black Lives Matter, says critics questioning the willingness of black activists to address police violence against white victims often do so in error.

“I see regularly, ‘Why don’t you speak out against police brutality that affects white people?” he said. “When people say that to an activist or to me, they clearly don’t have their ears to the ground.

“It didn’t surprise me at all that people from all walks of life showed up from day one there in Minneapolis, because people are bothered by injustice and when they see this, it wasn’t racial.”

The diversity of protesters in Minneapolis was impossible to miss on Thursday, as hundreds marched through Damond’s neighborhood. Also clear was the thread that so many saw connecting Damond’s death with that of Philando Castile. His mother, Valerie Castile, hugged Dom Damond, Justine’s fiance. John Thompson, a friend and coworker of Castile who became an activist after his death, gave an impassioned speech, as he has at many other protests over the last year.

An activist who goes by the name of King Demetrius Pendleton, another organizer of the 16 July vigil for Damond, was also present. He livestreamed protests related to the death of Castile. He was doing the same for Damond.

“The similarity is that the police are trigger happy,” he said. “They are too quick to discharge their firearm. They do not assess the situation.”

One Shot, Many Questions

A year after a police officer in a Twin Cities suburb fatally shot Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black driver whose dying moments were streamed by his girlfriend on Facebook, some of the same questions have pursued the shooting of Ms. Damond.

What led Officer Noor to fire his weapon? The loud noise the other officer said he had heard? Fear of an ambush, as his partner’s lawyer has implied?

At this point, almost everything is conjecture. Neither officer had his body camera turned on, leaving investigators and the public blind, a fact that the Minneapolis mayor, Betsy Hodges, has called “unacceptable.”

Officer Noor, whose record included three civilian complaints and a lawsuit over his treatment of a woman while performing a mental health checkup, has declined to speak with investigators.

Both officers have been placed on leave, and on Friday, the mayor forced the police chief, Janeé Harteau, to resign. It was an abrupt end to a contentious tenure, during which Chief Harteau faced criticism over her handling of other police shootings, including the killing of a black man, Jamar Clark, that led to weeks of protests. Activists have also questioned why officials moved so decisively in this case to condemn the shooting, compared with other police shootings in which the victims were black.

But as in other cases, prosecutors might find it difficult to make a case against Officer Noor if he argues that he believed he was in danger.

A 1989 Supreme Court decision, Graham v. Connor, held that officers’ actions had to be judged by whether force was reasonable given what the officer knew at the time.

“There is this huge misunderstanding in this country about the rules surrounding police officers’ use of deadly force,” said Jim Bueermann, a former Redlands, Calif., police chief who is now the president of the Police Foundation, a research group. “People just say, if a person was unarmed, why would an officer have shot him or her?”

In fast-moving situations, police protocol often leaves little room for error.

Officers usually have a round chambered in their sidearms. And experts say they are generally taught to draw their guns when they feel they or someone else are in imminent danger. Even for many traffic stops, officers keep a hand on the weapon while it is in the holster.

Mr. Bueermann said he believed many officers were quicker to pull their guns than they would have been a decade or two ago. “There is constant messaging to police officers about the dangers of their jobs,” he said. “There’s a really common adage in policing: It’s better to be tried by 12 than carried by six.”

He also questioned whether Officer Noor might have accidentally discharged his weapon — a far more common event than many realize, he said.

What made this shooting particularly bizarre, to veteran police officers, was that Officer Noor fired at close range past his partner. Many officers would be furious or unnerved if a partner shot across them in any situation short of being attacked, said Vernon J. Geberth, a former New York City police commander and the author of “Practical Homicide Investigation,” a widely used textbook.

The officer’s partner might well be thinking, “You could’ve shot my head off,” Mr. Geberth said.

Westie wrote: »

Will Munny wrote: »

Man ? off. you have sadists with badges and situations where the police were justifiabley left with no other choice. did I say every police shooting was justified? Ever?

to compare ever police shooting as the same thing is the ? epitome of intellectual dishonesty. The only situation even close to the Justine Damond shooting is Philandos Castile. Get real.

In what way is it the only one comprable?

I'm trying to figure out if you Just want to fight.