No Charges Against Police Officers in Jamar Clark Shooting Death

By Paul Walsh, Star Tribune

30 March 16

 

Clark was not handcuffed and refused to take his hand off an officer's gun, so a second officer shot Clark in the head, County Attorney Mike Freeman spelled out, based on the investigation.

o charges will be filed against the two Minneapolis officers involved in the shooting death last fall of Jamar Clark, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Wednesday, citing DNA and other evidence showing Clark had a hand on one officer’s gun during a struggle and was not handcuffed when shot by a second officer.

For more than 30 minutes in a downtown Minneapolis news conference and with Clark’s family and supporters present, Freeman laid out in meticulous detail the evidence that led to his decision and showed video from the scene.

Clark, 24, a black man, was shot in the head during the scuffle with the two white Minneapolis police officers, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, on Nov. 15 as he confronted paramedics placing his injured girlfriend in an ambulance.

The shooting led to international attention, widespread local protests, and an 18-day encampment outside the police department’s Fourth Precinct in north Minneapolis, near the site of the shooting.

In the prelude to rolling out the evidence followed by his decision, Freeman nodded to the spate of killings of black citizens by police officers in Chicago, Cleveland and elsewhere in the past year or so, saying, “This case is not at all similar to others seen around the country,” he said. The officers “did not have an opportunity to withdraw” from the physical conflict with Clark.

In a statement, Mayor Betsy Hodges complimented Freeman for his “transparency, his professionalism, and his willingness to be publicly accountable for his decision.”

At a later news conference, Hodges declined to say whether she agreed with Freeman’s conclusion, saying, “I have not had a chance to look at the evidence.”

Police Chief Janeé Harteau, added that her department will be making no decisions on disciplining the officers until a previously requested federal investigation is concluded and the department has reviewed the independent investigations as well as the department’s own internal investigation.

At Freeman’s news conference, Raeisha Williams, communications director for the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP and a City Council candidate, said to him, “If the city burns, it’s on your hands.”

Miski Noor, a Black Lives Matter organizer called for a nonviolent response and added, “I don’t think Raeisha is advocating [violence]. … I think her point is people are frustrated and are upset because yet again the justice system does not value black life.”

Harteau said her department and other law enforcement agencies have several contingency plans in place should police action against protesters be necessary.

Freeman said the investigation, led by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension with help from the FBI, found that:

• Clark was not handcuffed, as some witnesses contended, when he struggled with the two officers.


• Clark had a hand on officer Ringgenberg’s holstered handgun during the scuffle on the ground and ignored repeated orders to “let go” of the weapon.


• During the altercation, Clark said more than once, “I’m ready to die.”

Much of what the investigation found, including video, was being posted Wednesday on the county attorney’s website. Freeman said “this degree of transparency … is unprecedented.”

Plans for two gatherings in response to Freeman’s decision are in the works. A rally organized by Justice4Jamar, is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. at Plymouth and James Avenues N., near where Clark was shot. The groups Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and Justice4Jamar announced on Facebook a gathering at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Elliot Park, just south of downtown.

On the North Side, some businesses announced early in the afternoon that they were closing, including Cub Foods on Broadway, one of the few supermarket options for residents in that part of the city.

At the scene where Clark was shot, a handful of protesters obstructed vehicles passing by. They stood in the street and strung a bench and other items across the lanes in both directions. A makeshift memorial to Clark clung to a tree nearby.

Outside the Fourth Precinct, officers sporting shielded helmets took up position. Nearby was a “peace pole” that read, “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”

In a detailed account of the night Clark was shot, Freeman said:

Officers told Clark to take his hands out of his pockets and he wouldn’t. Ringgenberg, who had initially drawn his gun, put it back in the holster and grabbed Clark’s right wrist. Schwarze grabbed Clark’s other arm and dropped his handcuffs while trying to cuff him. Ringgenberg then tried a takedown move of Clark, and they both fell to the ground with Ringgenberg’s back to Clark’s stomach.

Ringgenberg felt his holstered gun go from his hip to the small of his back. Ringgenberg reached back and felt Clark’s hand on his gun. He repeatedly told Schwarze: “He’s got my gun, he’s got my gun.”

Schwarze put his gun to edge of Clark’s mouth and said, “Let go or I’m going to shoot you.”

Schwarze said Clark looked at him and said “I’m ready to die.”

Schwarze pulled the trigger once, but the slide caught. He pulled the trigger again and the gun went off, 61 seconds after the officers first encountered Clark.

Freeman said the handcuffs were found afterward in the grass near where Clark had been shot. Freeman said they were unclasped and had Clark’s blood on them on one side, leaving investigators to conclude they were not on Clark’s wrists when Schwarze fired.

Also, Freeman continued, there was no DNA from Clark on the inside of the handcuffs, nor did an autopsy find any marks from handcuffs on his wrists. Clark’s DNA was found on the grip of Ringgenberg’s gun, the county attorney added.

Video was then shown of some of the events that Freeman chronicled. As the video being displayed showed Ringgenberg taking down Clark, someone shouted to Freeman, “How is that resisting?”

Once Freeman offered to take questions at the news conference, Clark supporters peppered him with questions and statements.

One person said Freeman did not give a “fair and accurate account” of what happened. When asked, Freeman acknowledged that investigators know only of the officers saying they heard Clark say, “I’m ready to die.”

In a follow-up conference call with reporters, Freeman said the takedown move used by Ringgenberg on Clark is “not favored” by the Minneapolis Police Department and was a technique the officer learned while on the San Diego force.

At the same time, Freeman added, “You have to remember that Clark had resisted arrest and officers were already concerned he had beaten up his girlfriend and been told he interfered with medical personnel. He was told to take his hands out of his pocket and he refused, which is problematic for cops because it was dark out.”

Freeman said that 20 civilian witnesses spoke to whether Clark was cuffed. He said two said Clark was not handcuffed, six were unsure, and 12 said he was. Of those 12, the county attorney continued, some said Clark was cuffed in front of his body, others said behind his back and others said he was cuffed on one hand.

Nekima Levy-Pounds, head of the Minneapolis NAACP, attended Freeman’s news conference and said to him, “You did not give any credence or credibility to what the witnesses on the North Side had to say. You have not held one single officer accountable who has killed someone.”

Jeremy Baker, 41, Clark’s cousin, left the press conference room upon hearing Freeman say no charges would be filed and said, “They killed my cousin! They shot him in the head. Are you serious? This is so sad.”

Charles Samuelson, head of the Twin Cities chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, noting that Clark was shot about a minute after the police arrived, said, “[They] should have allowed for more time to address the situation fully.”

Police had been called on a report that Clark assaulted his girlfriend and blocked paramedics from trying to treat her on the street in the 1600 block of Plymouth Avenue N. Clark died the next day.

Ringgenberg, 30, and Schwarze, 29, were placed on administrative leave but returned to police desk jobs in January. Both officers have more than seven years of policing experience, including the past 17 months with Minneapolis. Neither has had any disciplinary actions since they joined the Minneapolis force, according to the police union.

Schwarze, while a Richfield police officer, is accused in a still-pending lawsuit to have deployed a Taser on the passenger of a vehicle pulled over by officers in December 2011. He also is accused of threatening to beat the tased victim and a second passenger if they got out of the vehicle.

While Ringgenberg was a San Diego police officer, he was sued in federal court in 2012 for alleged rough treatment of a suspect resisting arrest. The suit was dismissed.

The BCA investigated the Clark case and turned over its findings to Freeman in February. Earlier this month, Freeman reversed decades of precedent and announced he would not use a grand jury in police-involved shootings, including in the Clark case.