A police precinct under siege. Mobs of violent people scream and chant unintelligibly as they throw rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails, and fire gunshots at the besieged police with veritable impunity. The occupying mob erects tents and lean-tos and stays warm with fires burning in metal barrels. Meanwhile the police are hunkered down inside the precinct only to emerge to "stay the line" against the horde and once again face insults, assaults, injuries, all the while being forced to do nothing because of a government paralyzed by fear of political repercussions.

Unfortunately, this is not the plot of some apocalyptic Hollywood film. It is the reality of Minneapolis Police Precinct 4 since Nov. 15. In what I can only describe as another perversion of our First Amendment rights, protesters reminiscent of those in “Flaming Ferguson” have seized upon unsubstantiated rumors about the killing of a black suspect by a white police officer to violently protest. And in keeping with the now ever-present racial agenda in America, the well-oiled occupying force of the Black Lives Matter mob and their anarchist allies have descended upon the city.

The Minneapolis version of the big Ferguson lie of "Hands Up Don't Shoot" is that a peaceful black youth named Jamar Clark was viciously set upon by two brutal white officers who handcuffed him and shot him in the head in full view of lots of community members. This story even on its face strains the boundaries of belief, but as we have seen all over our country in the last year or so, never let the facts get in the way of a good politically driven racial agenda.

The tragedy in Minneapolis, though, is that if the city had strong, effective, and intelligent leadership in the positions of mayor and chief of police, this situation might never have unraveled to the point of what is in reality an occupying force taking over a police precinct and a neighborhood. But Mayor Betsy Hodges and Chief Janee’ Harteau, who have famously been filmed doing the "hands up don't shoot dance" celebrating the
great lie" of Ferguson, have already surrendered any semblance of credible leadership. Instead of giving the media and community a fact-based briefing on this police use of force, they instead threw their officers completely under the bus by releasing no facts and instead called for a federal investigation of the police. This abdication of leadership is astounding yet unfortunately not without precedent in the brave new world of politically correct police and city leadership.

The MPD is an agency of approximately 1,100 sworn personnel. It is a professional law enforcement agency in a major American city, and as such, it has protocols for dealing with the media. But the MPD's current chief has chosen to simply say nothing of substance and into that void of information has come the destructive rumors now festering within the community. That is gross negligence or total incompetence at the very least and an effort to advance a politically motivated agenda at worst.

The real question is of course what really happened to end Jamar Clark's life. To discover this we have to look outside what should be the source of this info, the chief and the Minneapolis PD's public information office.

To hear the voice in the wilderness of what actually took place leading up to the shooting of Jamar Clark, we must turn to Lt. Bob Kroll, the head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. Because as union leader he is beyond the reach of the apparatus controlled by the mayor and chief, Kroll has stepped into the void to explain why the officers were forced to use deadly force during the confrontation with what the press is of course calling another “unarmed black youth,” who according to his relatives was a “peaceful man getting his life together."

According to Kroll, Jamar Clark died as a result of his own violent criminal choices and actions. On the night of the shooting MPD officers were dispatched to assist medical personnel on an ambulance who were attempting to treat and transport a female victim of a beating. She reportedly suffered that beating at the hands of Jamar Clark, the man Black Lives Matter is holding up as a peaceful angel. Kroll says that while the EMTs were treating the beaten woman, Clark showed up and attempted to drag her out of the ambulance and fought with the crew, who called for police assistance. When two MPD officers arrived they tried to take Clark into custody but instead of complying he got into a violent fight with the two officers. Kroll says at some point during the struggle, Clark attempted to wrest away one of the officer’s sidearms and was shot. He was not handcuffed at the time.

And Clark was no angel. He was a convicted felon with a history of violence. At the time of his death, he had been recently released on probation after pleading guilty to making terroristic threats in an incident where he threatened to burn the apartment of a girlfriend. The girlfriend and her children were in the dwelling at the time and Clark reportedly set a trail of lighter fluid to do the job. So his tendencies of using violence against women are well documented. And if the totality of circumstances reported by Kroll is correct, then this shooting was justified on every level.

The question now of course is even if the evidence reveals the officers used deadly force against Clark within all legal and moral guidelines, will that quiet the protesters? Will they pack up their tents and sheepishly saunter away chastised by the truth? Not a chance, because none of the theater that Black Lives Matter and their cronies perform for the ever-too-complicit media is based on justice or truth. It is based on lies and a racially motivated political agenda that has its tentacles entwined in government and media and well-funded organizations that fundamentally oppose an American way of life that is eroding under their onslaught.

This commentary is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of Police Magazine/PoliceMag.com.