Community Gathers In North Mpls. After Jamar Clark Decision

MINNEAPOLIS (AP/WCCO) -- Several dozen people have gathered in north Minneapolis near the spot where a black man was shot in a confrontation with police last November.

The gathering came hours after a prosecutor declined to charge two police officers in the death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark. The prosecutor said the officers were justifiably in fear for their lives as Clark tried to get hold of an officer's gun.

Mihesha Gibbs, a 27-year-old administrative assistant from south Minneapolis, said incidents like Clark's shooting are becoming so common that they're no longer shocking.

Clark died a day after he was shot. It sparked waves of protests and an 18-day encampment outside the police precinct near where he died.

More protests were expected later Wednesday. Gibbs says she doesn't condone violence but says that police can't "back someone into a corner and expect them not to have sort of reaction."

The group Neighborhoods Organizing for Change released a statement saying they were disappointed at the lack of an indictment for the two officers involved.

"County Attorney Mike Freeman's account of his refusal to charge officers Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze ... uses dog-whistle language to describe the officers' fear of a 24-year-old black man," the statement said. "Fidgeting, having one's hands in one's pockets, and staring off into space are not criminal offenses. These are the reasons the officers gave for escalating so violently and immediately upon encountering Jamar Clark. This is the same language used to criminalize young black men in everything from low-level arrests to fatal police shootings all over the country."

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