Man killed in police shooting tried to escape troubled past
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The troubled past that Jamar Clark struggled for years to escape now hangs over the investigation into his death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.
[...] police union representatives point to Clark's criminal history as proof that he was a bad actor, and they contend he was reaching for an officer's gun when he was shot.
Beyond the domestic assault call alleging Clark had hurt his girlfriend that brought police to the north Minneapolis neighborhood, he spent three years in and out of prison for a robbery conviction.
[...] he was on probation for threatening to burn down an ex-girlfriend's house after a bitter break-up and was awaiting trial for a July arrest for fleeing police in a high-speed chase.
"None of our children deserve to be shot and killed, and then talked about like they are animals," said Bettie Smith, who joined protesters Monday to discuss her son's death in a 2008 officer-involved shooting.
Wilma and James Clark, who adopted Jamar Clark when he was 4, acknowledged his legal trouble in an interview with MPR News but said he was fixing it.
In a letter on behalf of one of the officers involved in the shooting, an attorney and Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll listed some of his past crimes, saying Clark was "not a peaceful, law-abiding citizen."
[...] when Tim Hoag and his wife hired Clark earlier this year — first to help out with painting and cleanup at their rental homes, then at Hoag's moving and trucking company — Hoag said they found an energetic yet polite young man, a hard and trustworthy worker with a bright personality and a "million-dollar smile."