Mall of America’s efforts to stop this demonstration is an arcane throwback to efforts to stymie the civil rights movement.
The protesters migrated from the mall to the Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport, where they blocked roads and terminal entrances.
The mall does not allow protests, and the judge’s order did not give the protesters permission to protest at the mall, so more arrests could happen Wednesday.
A shooting at a North Carolina mall sent shoppers fleeing into stores, some locking themselves inside, on Christmas Eve, but police say the incident was sparked by a long-running feud and was not a random act of violence.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton told reporters Wednesday that he plans separate meetings with Black Lives Matter and NAACP officials next week as he prepares proposals to help erase economic disparities between white and black Minnesotans.
However, he allowed the mall to ban three of the leaders of the protest.
Lawyers for the nation’s largest mall had requested a temporary restraining order to prevent the Black Lives Matter protest planned for Wednesday, in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the massive demonstration that disrupted business and closed stores in the mall last December. “Because we will drag you out of that office for justice”.
I’m not sure the owners of Mall of America have thought through what it would look like if police in riot gear show up to their mall two days before Christmas to arrest peaceful protesters. Demonstrators remained in the Mall of America for about an hour and a half.
Dayton says he’s sympathetic to protesters’ concerns, but says the mall is private property.
Meanwhile, California Highway Patrol said it arrested nine female protesters blocking southbound traffic on the 101 freeway near the San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday.
The event would continue the protest of the November 15 shooting death of Jamar Clark, who was killed during a scuffle with police.
Another demonstration was held in the Minneapolis area’s Mall of America, where five people were arrested for various offenses such as trespassing, disorderly conduct and an unrelated outstanding arrest warrant, said Denis Otterness, deputy chief of the Bloomington Police Department. The 24-year-old black man died the day after he was shot by Minneapolis police responding to a recent assault complaint.
According to an airport spokesman, arrests were made in association with the protest, over a charge for causing significant traffic disruptions. She declined to say if she or her fellow organizers still planned to go to the mall, but she said she expects at least 700 people to show up.
A similar scene unfolded a year ago when Black Lives Matter protesters chose the mall to raise awareness of the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in NY.
Michael McDowell, Miski Noor, and Kandace Montgomery, three activists from Black Lives Matter, were barred by a judge from entering the Mall of America, but that didn’t stop hundreds of their supporters from showing up in their place.
