Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Four Charged in Shooting of Minneapolis Protesters

Video
bars
0:00/1:31
-0:00

transcript

Charges Announced in Minnesota Shooting

Prosecutors filed felony charges against four men in connection with the wounding of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis.

NA

Video player loading
Prosecutors filed felony charges against four men in connection with the wounding of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis.

Matt Furber and

MINNEAPOLIS — A white man accused of shooting five Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis apparently had racist views and identified with the antigovernment “sovereign citizen” movement, according to criminal complaints filed Monday charging him in the shooting. Three others were charged with related crimes.

The man, Allen L. Scarsella, 23, fired all eight shots on Nov. 23 with a .45-caliber handgun, but his companions were also armed when they went to the demonstration, intending to set off a confrontation, the documents said. That night, they said, Mr. Scarsella admitted the shooting to at least three other people, who were not at the protest.

At a brief news conference, Michael O. Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, said Mr. Scarsella “has more than incriminated himself” in the shooting, which wounded five black men, ranging in age from 19 to 43. He said he did not believe any of the defendants were part of an organized racist group.

On Mr. Scarsella’s cellphone were “racist images,” Kelly O’Rourke, a Minneapolis police sergeant, wrote in the complaint, without elaborating on what those images were. He also wrote that there were many photographs of Mr. Scarsella posing with guns and text messages among the defendants about plans to “rile up” and “stir up” the demonstrations on Nov. 23.

One of the people Mr. Scarsella confessed to the night of the shooting, a police officer he knows in Mankato, Minn., said Mr. Scarsella “had very intense opinions,” Sergeant O’Rourke wrote, and “had negative experiences with and opinions about African-Americans.” He viewed himself as a sovereign citizen, one of a group of people who refuse to recognize government authority in many spheres, particularly taxation.

Prosecutors charged him with five counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon causing substantial bodily harm, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000. All four men were charged with second-degree riot while armed with a dangerous weapon, punishable by up to five years and $10,000.

The others charged were Nathan W. Gustavsson, 21, and Joseph M. Backman, 27, both described as white, and Daniel T. Macey, 26, described as Asian-American. A state district judge in Minneapolis, Amy Dawson, set bail at $250,000 for each of them, and at $500,000 for Mr. Scarsella.

When asked why he did not charge the men with hate crimes, Mr. Freeman said the charges he filed carried stiffer sentences. He said he was consulting with federal prosecutors about the possibility of filing federal charges, too.

Black Lives Matter protests have been held in Minneapolis since the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, 24, a black man, by a white police officer on Nov. 15.

On Nov. 19, Mr. Scarsella and a friend went to the protest, where they were seen on surveillance video wearing masks. On the way to the demonstration, the complaint stated, they shot video of themselves making derogatory references to black people and saying they planned to “make the fire rise.”

Investigators interviewed the friend — who was not named and who did not accompany Mr. Scarsella the night of the shooting — and he said they took video of the protest and “made inappropriate comments to protesters which sparked anger,” and then posted angry comments on the websites Reddit and 4Chan, Sergeant O’Rourke wrote.

The complaint said that on the night of the shooting, Mr. Scarsella admitted to the shooting in phone calls to the same friend, to his girlfriend and to an acquaintance who is a police officer. Todd Miller, director of public safety in Mankato, confirmed that it was an officer who worked in that city, Brett Levin, and that Mr. Levin informed a supervisor, who called the Minneapolis police.

All four defendants were arrested the day after the shooting. The complaint says all have admitted, in jailhouse phone calls, that they were there when it happened.

Matt Furber reported from Minneapolis, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the New York edition with the headline: Four Charged in Shooting of Protesters in Minneapolis. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT