Woman dead after car hits protesters in Minneapolis
A woman was killed and three other people were injured when an SUV struck a parked car and pushed it into demonstrators during a protest in the Minneapolis neighborhood where a Black man was fatally shot earlier this month during an arrest attempt, police and witnesses said Monday.
The suspect was pulled from his vehicle by protesters after the 11:39 p.m. Sunday crash in Uptown and, according to reports from witnesses, demonstrators began striking him. The driver was taken into custody and was being treated for injuries at a hospital, authorities said.
A statement from police said a preliminary investigation indicated that the use of drugs or alcohol by the driver may be a contributing factor in the crash.
Witnesses said the SUV hit the car hard enough to send it flying.
“There was one line of barriers and then a second barrier, and he sped up. He sped up. He went even faster as he approached us. You could hear it ... start going even faster as he got close to us,” D.J. Hooker said.
A woman was pronounced dead at the hospital after the crash and three people were treated and released for non-life-threatening injuries.
The city has been on edge since the death of George Floyd more than a year ago and the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty on all counts in Floyd’s murder. There have been multiple protests in Uptown after Winston Smith Jr., a 32-year-old Black father of three, was fatally shot by two sheriff ’s deputies on June 3.
The deputies – one from Hennepin County and one from Ramsey County – were part of a U.S. Marshals Service task force that was attempting to arrest Smith on a warrant for illegal possession of a firearm, according to a statement from the agency. Smith, who was parked in a car, “failed to comply with officers’ commands” and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject,” the statement said.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is leading the investigation into the shooting, said a handgun and spent cartridge found inside the car indicate Smith also fired his gun. A woman who was with Smith said through her attorneys that she never saw Smith display a gun, contradicting law enforcement’s narrative of the shooting.
Smith’s family and protesters have called for transparency and the release of any video of the shooting, but the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said it is unaware of any video of the incident and the names of the deputies involved will not be released because they were working undercover.
Other injuries and deaths have been reported involving vehicles at protests across the U.S. as protesters have increasingly taken to streets to press their grievances. In Minneapolis, marching onto the area’s freeways has become a common tactic in recent years. During one incident last year, a semitrailer rolled into a crowd marching on a closed Minneapolis freeway over the death of Floyd. No one was seriously injured.
In response to such protests, Republican politicians in several states, including Oklahoma, Florida and Iowa, have sought legal immunity for drivers who hit protesters.
Contributing: Associated Press