St. Paul, Minn., mayor says 'shameless' protest violence won't be tolerated
Officers hit with rocks, bottles, concrete, construction materials and fireworks Saturday
Minnesota officials warned on Sunday they would not tolerate violence during further protests over the fatal police shootings of two black men after some demonstrators pelted police with debris in St. Paul.
The Minnesota State Patrol said more than 200 protesters shut down Interstate 94 in St. Paul for hours on Saturday night to protest last week's killing of Philando Castile, 32, in a St. Paul suburb. Officers were hit with rocks, bottles, concrete, construction materials and fireworks, police said.
The city's mayor and a protest leader both decried the violence, which injured 21 officers and led to 102 arrests. St. Paul police said one officer suffered a broken vertebra when a concrete block was dropped on his head during the protest on the interstate.
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"We will not tolerate the kind of shameless violence we saw throughout the course of the night," St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman told a news conference. "This doesn't honour anyone's memory."
The call for demonstrators to remain peaceful came as officials grappled with a wave of demonstrations against police use of force that has swept the country in the past week.
The protests follow the shooting of Castile as well as Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, La.
Blocked Interstate
In St. Paul, Rashad Turner, leader of the local chapter of the Black Lives Matter group, told WCCO-TV that the throwing of rocks and bottles at officers was disturbing. He blamed outside agitators for the violence, not the protesters on the freeway.
"It's ridiculous. It cannot happen. It's not what we do here in St. Paul," Turner said. "It does not honour Philando Castile."
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Authorities said 50 protesters were arrested on the Minnesota interstate and 52 others later on a street near the governor's mansion, the site of most of the protests since Castile was shot on Wednesday.
"Protesters last night turned into criminals," St. Paul police Chief Todd Axtell said. "And I am absolutely disgusted by the acts of some, not all, but some."
Some 300 people attended a peaceful protest on Sunday afternoon at the St. Anthony Police Department. St. Anthony police patrol the Falcon Heights suburb where Castile was shot.