By Kim Hyatt
Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS — As many as 1,000 protesters took to the snow-covered streets of south Minneapolis on Sunday to demand justice for 23-year-old Dolal Idd after he was fatally shot by Minneapolis police last week.
The crowd was peaceful while expressing outrage over the killing that closed out 2020 — the first by Minneapolis police since the killing of George Floyd on May 25.
For several hours Sunday, protesters listened to activists, chanted and marched from the site of Idd’s killing to Lake Street and back, carrying signs echoing those seen throughout the summer.
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“I’m encouraged to see that there’s such a huge turnout in solidarity for the brother and his family in the middle of the winter. That shows that there’s actually passion for the youth to really actually engage this indefinitely until there is some real change,” said AJ Awed, 30, who knelt on his jacket in prayer on the edge of the crowd.
“But at the same time, I’m disappointed because we shouldn’t be here. After the murder of George Floyd and countless others, I don’t understand how the police could be so careless, you know?”
Sunday’s demonstration came a day after the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office released bodycam footage of a search at the Idd family home, where Dolal lived, in Eden Prairie. The 28-minute video shows Idd’s family, including at least two children, held on the living room floor while Idd’s parents are restrained in plastic handcuffs as deputies executed a search warrant at 2:20 a.m. Dec. 31, hours after the killing.
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“They had the audacity to share another edited video of how they terrorized a family ... treated them as they were going into a military operation,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which helped organize the protest.
Hussein told the crowd that, in the wake of Floyd’s killing, he doesn’t believe the narrative of police and called for an independent investigation into Idd’s killing. He said the first bodycam footage shared by Minneapolis police, appearing to show that Idd fired first at officers who approached his car, is “inconclusive” and criticized it for being edited.
Idd was killed by officers during an attempted traffic stop at a Holiday gas station at 36th Street and Cedar Avenue in south Minneapolis. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo released the footage in what he called a demonstration of the department’s commitment to transparency.
The Sheriff’s Office footage shows deputies, several with guns drawn, conducting a “knock and announce” search. At the time, Idd’s family members did not know about the killing and repeatedly asked why deputies were there.
The family and others, including state Sen.-elect Omar Fateh, allege that the search was inappropriate.
Sheriff David Hutchinson said Saturday that he released the video to “clarify” what happened, saying there had been allegations that deputies acted “inappropriately, inhumanely, and with excessive force.” Hutchinson said deputies assisted the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and that county SWAT officers were used because of “probable cause to believe guns were in the home.”
On Sunday protesters gathered outside the gas station at 36th and Cedar about 2 p.m. before heading north on Cedar to Lake Street. The crowd at times stopped traffic and snaked around idling cars and a Metro Transit bus. It eventually moved west on Lake before heading on Bloomington Avenue and back to the shooting scene. The crowd began to disperse about 5 p.m.
“We need justice, that’s all we need,” said 32-year-old Kamas Hassan while holding a megaphone and leading chants. A nearby drum line kept a steady beat as the crowd shouted that Black and Somali lives matter.
Kari Waderich, 34, watched the crowd go by her house. She said she didn’t realize a protest was planned but stepped outside to be part of the moment.
“This neighborhood has been through a lot,” she said. A hand-painted Black Lives Matter sign hung in her front window from a protest she attended earlier this summer after Floyd’s death. “I don’t think I’ll be taking it down anytime soon.”
(c)2021 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis)