MINNEAPOLIS—Activists from Minneapolis’ black community spent four months demanding the release of videos and other evidence after a black man was fatally shot in a confrontation with two white police officers. When it finally was made public and a prosecutor announced the officers wouldn’t be charged, they were enraged.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman on Wednesday cleared the officers, saying forensic evidence backed their account that 24-year-old Jamar Clark was not handcuffed and was struggling for an officer’s gun when he was shot. Clark ignored warnings to take his hand off Officer Mark Ringgenberg’s gun, leading Officer Mark Schwarze to shoot Clark as the officers feared for their lives, Freeman said.
“Ringgenberg communicated to Schwarze that Clark had his firearm and that Schwarze should shoot Clark. Schwarze did. His actions were reasonable given both his observations and Ringgenberg’s plea,” the prosecutor said.
But Freeman’s detailed version of the events early on Nov. 15, and his release of the investigative documents, drew derision even at the news conference from activists who accused him of favoring police over the accounts of bystanders who said Clark was handcuffed when he was shot. Several of the critics were among those who maintained a protest encampment outside a police station for 18 days and led marches and largely peaceful protests across the Twin Cities area after the shooting.
