White supremacists shoot and injure five BLM protesters in Minneapolis.

Courtesy of the Star Tribune:  

Five protesters were shot late Monday night near the Black Lives Matter encampment at the Fourth Precinct police station in north Minneapolis, according to police. 

Those who were shot sustained non-life-threatening injuries, said police spokesman John Elder in a statement. 

Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said “a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights.” 

One of the three men wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening. 

When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they “opened fire on about six protesters,” hitting five of them. Jaehnert said she heard four gunshots.

The Minneapolis police had arrested two suspects in the case, but released one after questioning.

I had originally resisted posting on this story because honestly it seemed almost unbelievable that actual white supremacists would attack this group.

But apparently that is indeed what happened.

As I am sure many of you have noticed there has been a concerted effort to vilify the BLM protesters.

Which has also lead to one them being attacked during a Donald Trump rally:  

“It was just a sea of white faces,” he told ThinkProgress. “A lady kicked me in the stomach. A man kicked me in the chest. They called me n*****, monkey, and they shouted ‘all lives matter’ while they were kicking and punching me. So for all the people who are still confused at this point, they proved what ‘all lives matter’ meant. It means, ‘Shut up, n*****.'”

While I myself have found some of their tactics to be a little questionable, I also think that the constant vilifying of the group, something that even Sarah Palin indulged in recently, may lead to more of these kinds of attacks in the future.