Minneapolis police shot and killed a man Wednesday evening during a traffic stop in the city’s Powderhorn neighborhood.
Officers pulled over a man suspected of a felony about 6:15 p.m. outside a Holiday gas station at East 36th Street and Cedar Avenue South, where “shots were exchanged,” according to John Elder, a spokesman for the Minneapolis Police Department. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.
During a late-night news conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said witnesses told investigators the suspect fired first at officers. Arradondo said the shooting was captured by officers’ body cameras, and that footage will be released Thursday.
“I want our communities to see that so they can see for themselves,” he said.
A woman who was a passenger in the vehicle was uninjured in the shooting, as were the officers involved, Elder said.
Elder did not immediately know what crime the man was suspected of; he declined to say whether a gun was recovered at the scene. No further details about the man who was shot, including his race, were released Wednesday night. His identity was pending determination by the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office.
Arradondo said the traffic stop was carried out by members of a police community response team — long-standing units that respond to things like drug investigations and gun crime.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Investigation was processing the scene Wednesday night and will investigate the shooting — the first time someone has been killed by Minneapolis police since the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day.
By 9 p.m., dozens of people had gathered nearby in 20-degree cold, some protesting the police and accusing them of murder.
Arradondo urged those at the scene to express themselves peacefully.
“We want to do everything we can to protect everyone’s First Amendment rights to freely assemble, demonstrate,” he said. “But … we cannot allow for destructive criminal behavior. Our city has gone through too much.”
In a statement late Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pledged to get information about the shooting out as quickly as possible in coordination with the state investigation.
“Events of this past year have marked some of the darkest days in our city,” Frey said. “We know a life has been cut short and that trust between communities of color and law enforcement is fragile. … We must all be committed to getting the facts, pursuing justice, and keeping the peace.”
The shooting occurred less than a mile from where Floyd, a Black man, died at the hands of Minneapolis police seven months ago. His death, under the knee of officer Derek Chauvin, touched off several nights of protests and rioting in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Chauvin and three other officers involved were quickly fired by the Minneapolis department and charged in Floyd’s death. They are scheduled for trial in March.
In response to the police killings this year of Floyd and other Black people, including Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, protests spread through the country, reaching coastal cities familiar with demonstrations, like Portland, Ore., and New York, but also small towns throughout the Midwest and South.
Several cities responded by pursuing police reform and budget cuts. Minneapolis’s City Council voted this month to divert $8 million from the Police Department to other city services, about 4.5 percent of the department’s proposed budget.
However, a push by some City Council members to replace the department with a new public safety unit failed last summer.
Frey and Arradondo, who opposed doing away with the department, have offered several policy changes since Floyd’s death, including limiting the use of so-called no-knock warrants, revising use-of-force policies and requiring officers to report on their attempts to de-escalate situations.
"exchange" - Google News
December 31, 2020 at 09:16AM
https://ift.tt/3o30cyo
Officers fatally shoot man in exchange of gunfire during Minneapolis traffic stop, police say - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
"exchange" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3c55nbe
https://ift.tt/3b2gZKy
Exchange
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Officers fatally shoot man in exchange of gunfire during Minneapolis traffic stop, police say - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press"
Post a Comment