BY ED FELIEN
He was disconnected from his family when he was 4, and it seemed like he never got connected after that. A gangsta armed robbery when he was 19 got him 41 months in prison. He got out and got busted for smoking grass—“Rich people do it in the suites, poor people do it in the streets.” Had trouble finding work. Couldn’t get along with his girlfriend. He was convicted of threatening to burn down her apartment and was still on probation for that when he was killed.
He went to a rowdy birthday party Sunday night, Nov. 15. Two women got into a fight. Somehow Jamar Clark and RayAnn got into that fight, and RayAnn ended up with a busted lip and a bruised ankle. Someone called 911. RayAnn told the paramedics that Clark was the one who hit her. The paramedics told the EMS supervisor, and the supervisor told MPD officers Schwarze and Ringgenberg. Clark had been tapping on the back door of the ambulance. He was walking away with his hands at his side when Ringgenberg put a hammerlock on him from behind and dragged him to the ground. They fought on the ground. At this point the police say Clark told them, “I’m ready to die.”
Ringgenberg says they continued to struggle and that Clark had control of his gun, and he then told Schwarze to open fire. Schwarze did. He shot Clark and Clark died.
Some eyewitnesses said Clark was not resisting arrest, and some said he was in handcuffs. But there is no clear videotape of the incident.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman declined to indict the officers, saying the evidence was insufficient and contradictory.
Former Police Chief Tony Bouza thinks the two cops should have been prosecuted for manslaughter. In an interview with Randy Furst of the Star Tribune: https://mobile.twitter.com/RKdoe/status/717890752840343557, Bouza said, “They need to continue to struggle and get him under control, but they can’t shoot him. Nobody wants to punish two cops who are doing their jobs and acting in good faith, but in the relationship between white cops and black citizens, you have an obligation to demonstrate the system will enforce the law.”
Friends and family of Jamar Clark say they can’t believe that he said, “I’m ready to die.” But the point of desperation sounds similar to the last moments of Terrance Franklin’s life when Franklin ran headlong at a police officer holding a machine gun pistol in a basement in South Minneapolis. Some people are calling it suicide by cop, like the suicide by settler of Palestinian youth attacking armed Israeli settlers with kitchen knives: The acts of desperate young people with no hope, no prospects for the future.
The unprofessional behavior of the police in the Terrance Franklin and Jamar Clark deaths was a significant contributing factor in the deaths of these two young men. Both were unarmed. Both had been beaten to desperation. Both lives could have been saved if the police would have backed off and tried to talk to them. Three big men should have been able to talk Jamar Clark into cooperation without dragging him to the ground and beating him. And five police officers and a dog should have been able to talk Terrance Franklin out of a basement without killing him.
There is an ongoing investigation of the Clark incident by the FBI and the Internal Affairs unit of the MPD, but there is little hope that these agencies would deliver a report critical of police conduct.
It is the responsibility of the chief of police to judge the actions of these officers, and then it is the responsibility of the mayor to judge the action or inaction of the chief. The City Council must judge the action or inaction of the mayor, and, finally, next year, during the municipal elections, it is our responsibility as voters to judge whether the mayor and City Council members have acted in a way to prevent these kind of tragedies from happening in the future.
Rest in peace, Jamar Clark. Know that there are many who will not rest until the City of Minneapolis learns that Black Lives Matter.
Thank you for publishing the picture of that beautiful young man. He should still be alive and learning what he had to learn, and what we all have to learn, to live a good life.
The cops need to learn how to shoot someone , not to kill, but to stop the violence. How ’bout shooting in the leg? Is that not good enough to stop someone?