Katie LinkTwo days before Christmas it's hard to find two places busier than a mall and an airport. So that's exactly where Black Lives Matter protesters in Minnesota went to demonstrate Wednesday.
Last year, more than 1,500 people gathered at the Mall of America to protest police violence. This year, they planned to do the same and succeeded, sort of.
After the 2014 mall protest reportedly ended in arrests and poor sales numbers, officials worked to block protesters from doing it again. A Minnesota judge upheld temporary restraining orders against three Black Lives Matter protesters just one day before the planned action. (Video via WCCO)
And yet, KARE reports protesters still showed up Wednesday. Dozens of stores closed as demonstrators flooded the mall early in the afternoon. The mall went on lockdown, police ushered everyone out and protesters headed to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
There they shut down traffic, disrupted airport light rail schedules and blocked security lines. The group is chalking it up as a success.
A post on the group's Facebook wall reads in part: "Today we shut down the Mall of America, Minneapolis Airport and light rail as part of a nationally coordinated protest. The fact that black people get constantly harassed by police forces at every level, local and federal, in airports, malls and on the streets of America is no longer acceptable."
At least four people were arrested at the Mall of America and an unknown number were arrested at the airport. As of Wednesday, evening operations at the airport had returned to normal.
This video includes images from Getty Images.
