Photo, above, was taken on Nov. 19 when Congressman Keith Ellison and other elected officials spoke at a news conference across the street from the 4th Precinct headquarters Thursday night in Minneapolis. At left is Black Lives Matter organizer Lena Gardner.

By Thomas Madison

A Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis turned violent when three armed white men shot five of the BLM protesters. Apparently, the white men were there to video the protest. The BLM crowd took offense to one of the men wearing a mask and beat, then chased, then again beat the white videographers, who were armed. Having been chased and beaten repeatedly, the videographers signalled to the BLM protesters that they were armed, which didn’t matter to the protesters. They continued to chase and beat the videographers, and were shot.

However, BLM and Minneapolis NAACP President, Nekima Levy-Pounds, tell a very different story of the white videographers being the aggressors, who they claim were taunting and shooting at the “nonviolent, peaceful” protesters for no apparent reason.

The more accurate account is confirmed in the video, below. Discussing the event, two BLM protesters told the truth, that it was indeed the protesters who were the aggressors, chasing and repeatedly beating the three white videographers, who were ultimately forced to defend themselves, shooting into the mob in self-defense.

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From Mark Vancleave, Star-Tribune

Five protesters were shot late Monday night near the Black Lives Matter encampment at the Fourth Precinct police station in north Minneapolis, according to police.

Those who were shot sustained non-life-threatening injuries, said police spokesman John Elder in a statement.

Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said “a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights.”

One of the three men wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening.

When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they “opened fire on about six protesters,” hitting five of them. Jaehnert said she heard four gunshots.

The shootings occurred at 10:45 p.m. on Morgan Avenue N. about a block north of the precinct station.

The attackers fled. No arrests had been made by midnight Monday. Police said via their Twitter feed that they are searching for three white male suspects.

The gunshot victims were taken to North Memorial Medical Center and Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), deputy police chief Medaria Arradondo said at the scene.

A person at the scene said one of the victims had been shot in the stomach, and was undergoing surgery overnight at HCMC.

Jie Wronski-Riley said angry protesters moved the men away from the encampment at the police station. Wronski-Riley heard what sounded like firecrackers and thought, “surely they’re not shooting human beings.” Two young black men on either side of him were hit, one in the back and leg, the other in the arm.

At least two of the three men who had been taunting protesters were firing guns, said Wronski-Riley, who described the incident as “really chaotic, really fast.”

“I am obviously appalled that white supremacists would open fire on nonviolent, peaceful protesters,” said Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, who returned to the site after the shootings.