10 years after Jamar Clark's killing, former Minneapolis police inspector still has questions
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Saturday, Nov. 15, marks 10 years since the shooting of Jamar Clark.
Two Minneapolis police officers fatally shot the 24-year-old Black man in the head during a confrontation outside of a party in north Minneapolis. Clark was unarmed and the officers were never charged.
Massive protests erupted in the aftermath of the shooting. The community occupied the 4th Precinct Police Station for 18 days.
Michael Friestleben was head of the precinct at the time.
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MPR News asked Friestleben to reflect on all that unfolded — starting with Nov. 15, 2015, when he was called back to the north side on a report of an officer-involved shooting.
“When I get there, you’re going backwards and trying to get the scene, the investigators in, protect stuff, stop the 11 gangsters here who want to throw stuff, get the cops safely in the precinct,” he said in a conversation with MPR News host Clay Masters.
A transcript of that conversation, lightly edited for clarity, is below. Click the audio player above to hear it.
As somebody who spent a bunch of time in the community talking with folks, did you understand the anger?
Absolutely, absolutely. People have a right to protest. And every day I would go into the crowd. No one ever bumped me. Nobody ever swore at me. I ate with them.
How did the relationship between the neighborhood and the police shift after this shooting, though?
I mean, the neighborhood is prominently Black. Probably like 15 percent of the neighborhood was angry. I mean, they just went about their day.
So you’re putting a distinction between the neighborhood and outraged people who were coming into the neighborhood?
Yeah, and they have a right to be angry. A young man just got shot, and whether he was cuffed or not cuffed, nobody knows. They have a right to know. They have a right to know.
Did you have any conversations with Jamar Clark’s family in the aftermath?
Yeah. I mean, his brother, the first night, wanted to fight and all that stuff. We’re not, we ain’t going there. We’re not going there. And we had plenty of conversations.
What were those conversations like?
Well, they’re angry because they have their version, and maybe they’re right. You know, it’s not for us to judge. People who weren’t there can’t really judge it.
At the end of the day, a family member is dead.
Yeah.
Now this happened shortly after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, right around the time that the Black Lives Matter movement really started being pretty visible across the country. How do you think this shooting changed the city of Minneapolis? Or did it?
I don’t know that it changed it. The hardest thing was the cops, you know, in the beginning were told to back off. It’s hard for cops to just back off. They want to just go out … and put them all in jail. They want to go out there and crush everybody. We had one guy as a sniper on the roof. I go, “Why do we have a sniper on the roof? No one’s shooting at us.”
And there would be times the precinct was in a little bit of peril. People would start throwing rocks. I said, “Just go in the building.” Where there’s 1,000 people or 500 people, you’re not going to win.
We had a shooting one night — kids that came from Mankato, and they were white, and they were trying to get everything amped up.
I’m hearing you say that it hasn’t really changed that much. But at the same time, there have been several other prominent police killings in the Twin Cities —Philando Castile in 2016, George Floyd in 2020, Dante Wright in 2021, Amir Locke in 2022. Do you believe conversations about policing among those in the profession have changed in any way in the last 10 years?
It’s hard to answer, you know, because I just believe in the more friends you make, the less chance they’re going to hurt you.
Philando Castillo’s mom in particular, she was angry her son got killed. And I think that that whole call is like an officer safety issue, because those passenger cops should be on the passenger door. The other cop should have the driver.
But now you’re standing in front of a car that’s running with a baby in the back seat, and you’re shooting into a car. That's not what you’re trained to do.
Why do you think it’s a hard question to answer?
As you know, I've been a sergeant, lieutenant, inspector. You'll be in roll call and hear, “We’re going to war tonight.”
Like, who are we going to war with? You know, stuff like that. Like, they’d get all jacked up. And, you know, I think that a lot of police officers thinks it’s us against them all the time, and it’s not.
I keep hearing you go back to working within the community, reaching out, trying to understand, to find perspective. Maybe that’s what continues to be missing? Is that what I’m hearing?
I think that’s it. Everyone’s not a criminal. It doesn’t matter the color, not everybody’s the enemy.
Technology has also changed the way the public views policing. Over this past decade, rules have tightened around body cameras. Officers in Minneapolis must wear body cameras. They must turn them on when they’re dispatched, and must release the footage to the public when deadly force has been used. What do you make of these changes, and do you think that they are working as intended?
I think they’re working more than they’re not working. You know, because video doesn't lie. So it’s tough. I think it’s a good idea. I think it’s good that they’re monitored. I think that there should be a department that’s actually watching them also, even if, maybe this guy just didn’t complain, but this is how you treated him, and stuff like that.
Ten years on, what’s still top of mind when you think about Jamar Clark?
What is the truth? What happened there? Why was he shot? You have two officers right there. That doesn’t mean some guy can’t take out two officers, but you have the two people there. How and why do you get shot?
You’re still asking that question to yourself.
And I got drilled by the FBI — a gal and two big henchmen. She even said, “We’ve talked to the community and the great Mike Friestleben, who knows everything, doesn’t know.”
I said, I wasn’t there. And they could tell me a story. It doesn’t mean it’s true.
