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Last November, an altercation between two white police officers and Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old black man, ended up with Clark shot and dead. Although some video footage of the shooting is available, what exactly led up to the shooting — and, importantly, what Clark and the officers did and said — remains unclear.
Nonetheless, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said on Wednesday, March 30, that the two officers involved, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, won't face criminal charges. Freeman released volumes of evidence, including video, to argue that the two officers reasonably believed their lives were in danger when Ringgenberg told Schwarze to open fire.
The shooting — like others before it in Chicago, Cleveland, and Ferguson, Missouri — has drawn nationwide scrutiny and local protests. Elevated by the Black Lives Matter movement, which protests racial disparities in police use of force, critics say this is just the latest example of systemic bias in the criminal justice system — a bias that allows law enforcement officers to disproportionately use deadly force on black people.
The investigation indicated that Clark had attacked his ex-girlfriend, interfered with paramedics who tried to help her, and refused to remove his hands from his pockets upon officers' request, CNN and USA Today reported.
From there, Ringgenberg took out his gun, only aiming it at the ground. The officers again asked Clark to take his hands out of his pockets. Clark didn't comply.
Then Ringgenberg holstered his gun, and he and Schwarze took Clark to the ground to try to handcuff the 24-year-old. Ringgenberg reportedly landed on top of Clark. Ringgenberg said he felt his gun move from his right hip as Clark reached for it, and the officer claims that he felt Clark's "whole" hand on the weapon when he reached back to secure the weapon. The officer believed Clark had control of his firearm.
At that point, Schwarze dropped the handcuffs and took out his own gun, aiming it at Clark's head. "Let go or I'm gonna shoot you," he said. Clark then allegedly responded, "I'm ready to die." Upon Ringgenberg's urging, Schwarze shot and killed Clark.
The prosecutor argued the shooting was justified because Schwarze and Ringgenberg reasonably believed that Clark posed a threat by grabbing the officer's gun.
Grainy video from an ambulance camera shows Ringgenberg and Schwarze taking Clark to the ground. But before and after that, the confrontation remains mostly out of sight of the camera.
Witnesses provided conflicting accounts to investigators, according to CNN. Two said Clark was handcuffed during the struggle. Six said they didn't know. And 12 said he was handcuffed, although they didn't agree on whether his hands were behind him, his hands were in front of him, or if only his left hand was handcuffed.
Clark's autopsy later revealed no evidence that he was handcuffed at the time of the shooting. And Clark's DNA was reportedly found on Ringgenberg's weapon, according to USA Today.
But Clark's family and the local branch of the NAACP argued that the investigation was biased in favor of the police. They said Clark could have never told the officers that he was ready to die. And they claim the officers were the aggressors, since the video shows the cops taking Clark to the ground when he's not putting up a fight.
A federal investigation and internal police review into the shooting are still ongoing.
Still, the case has turned into another national controversy as Black Lives Matter and racial justice activists continue drawing attention to racial disparities in police killings.
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