A small group of protesters has blocked all southbound lanes of Interstate 35W at University Avenue in Minneapolis, the latest round of disruption in the wake of last week’s police killing of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights.
(StarTribune)- Arrests were being made about 45 minutes into the demonstration. About 40 to 50 demonstrators, accompanied by a handful of vehicles, took over the freeway around 7:50 a.m. during the peak of the morning rush hour. According to scanner reports, some were banging on driver’s windows and causing damage.
In a matter of minutes, southbound traffic on the main north-south highway in the state’s largest city came to a halt and started backing up for miles.
In holler and response came the demonstrators’ chant: “Who shut this down?” And the reply, “We shut this down!”
A separate group of protesters gathered in the atrium of the Star Tribune building to protest what they call racist coverage of the shooting deaths and Black Lives Matter. Several dozen people chanted and held up signs in the building, part of the Capella Tower complex in downtown Minneapolis.