Allen Scarsella was sentenced to 15 years and two months in prison on Wednesday for shooting and injuring five Black men near a Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstration in Minneapolis on Nov. 23, 2015.
The shootings followed nine days of peaceful demonstrations outside the city’s Fourth Precinct in response to the police-related death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark on Nov. 15, 2015.Witnesses say Clark was unarmed and handcuffed when he was shot. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced on March 30, 2016, that no charges would be filed against the officers.
Scarsella, a 25-year-old white male from Bloomington, Minn., had shown up at the BLM demonstrations more than once with friends. On the night of the shooting, attendees confronted the group of white men about their facemasks, but the group refused to remove the masks. Scarsella argued throughout the trial that he feared for his life and shot in self-defense as demonstrators chased them away.
