The Mall of America is taking legal action in an attempt to prevent a protest by the Minneapolis chapter of Black Lives Matter.
The group says it will rally at the mall Wednesday to protest the fatal shooting of Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old black man who died after he was shot by Minneapolis police last month.
While the mall is private property and doesn't allow protests, the activists managed to stage a similar protest in 2014. Hoping to avoid a repeat, the mall is seeking a temporary restraining order that would bar the group from protesting and require organizers to remove protest plans from social media.
[img src="http://admin.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/mall-of-america-black-lives-matter-sign.jpg" caption="Demonstrators filled the Mall of America rotunda and chanted "Black lives matter" to protest police brutality, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2014, in Bloomington, Minn." credit="The Star Tribune, Aaron Lavinsky" alt="Mall of America-Protest"]
The organizers said the mall was suing them because they refused to send out tweets and a "mass text message" that announced the December 23rd protest would be cancelled.
"If the motion is approved by a judge, activists could face jail time for refusing to make social media posts or send texts in accordance with the demands of a private corporation," they said in a release posted to Facebook.
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The move spawned an onslaught of criticism on Twitter, as supporters assailed the mall for choosing profit over racial justice, accusing it of standing on the wrong side of history. Many included a hashtag that expressed solidarity with the protesters, telling the mall "sue me too."
Mall of America chooses profits over right to assemble & racial justice, sues to support White Supremacy. #MOASueMeToo #BlackXmas— EM (@EvanSverige) December 21, 2015
Dear @mallofamerica So it's ok for 5000 people to assemble 4 cancer but not for black lives?? #MOASueMeToo #BlackLivesMattter— (allison b.) (@mplsallison) December 21, 2015
Dear @mallofamerica stop this and try to stand on the right side of history this time. I stand with #BlackLivesMatter! #MOASueMeToo— Dylan T. Kesti (@DylanKesti) December 21, 2015
Others accused the mall of being downright un-American.
Hey @mallofamerica. You might want to consider a rebranding. Mall of East Berlin has a ring to it. #MOASueMeToo— Aric McKeown (@aric) December 21, 2015
Organizers say the mall is just greedy, hoping to "bar free speech... despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies which it has used to appropriate the traditional public forum in service of its own corporate profit."
They called the restraining order an "outrageous and totalitarian step."
The organizers say they have no plans to stop the protest "unless authorities release the tapes related to Jamar Clark’s case, prosecute police without a grand jury by special prosecutor, and bring federal terrorism charges against white supremacists who shot five protesters during the occupation."
A hearing is scheduled for Monday afternoon.