Black Lives Matter Protest Planned in Dearborn

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DEARBORN, MI – A protest is planned Saturday outside Dearborn police headquarters by civil rights and African-American activists who compared Wednesday’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black man to the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.

“We’re willing to follow the examples of our brothers in Minnesota,” the Rev. Paul D. Bullock of Change Agent Consortium told the Detroit Free Press, referring to Black Lives Matter protests that shut down stores at the Mall of America and light-rail trains and traffic to the airport in Minneapolis Wednesday afternoon.

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“We are not going to let this be swept under the rug just because of the Christmas season and New Year’s,” Bullock, of Detroit, said. “We will stop our holiday parties to protest police brutality.”

The protest is planned for noon at the police department, located at 16099 Michigan Ave.

Haddad said Matthews had escaped from officers earlier in the day after allegedly committing a larceny in Dearborn. The Dearborn officer was patrolling in the area of Tireman and Greenfield about 12:30 p.m. when he observed the man and stopped to question him. A foot pursuit ended in the back yard of a residence, where the struggle and fatal shooting took place.

Bullock noted similarities in the Ferguson and Detroit shootings — the victims were unarmed in both cases, were accused of minor crimes and were said to be reching for a gun.

“What happened mirrors Ferguson,” Bullock told the Free Press. “If he was unarmed, why shoot him at all?”

Bullock also raised questions about why a Dearborn police officer was patrolling in Detroit.