Several arrests were made amid protests by the Black Lives Matter group at the Mall of America in Minnesota, officials said.

Protesters moved their demonstration to the Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport this afternoon after they were forced out of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, where four were arrested.

The airport protesters caused "significant traffic backups," the airport said on its Twitter account. It also temporarily closed Terminal 2 checkpoints to "prevent protesters from gaining access to secure area."

Airport police did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

The group first started at the Mall of America. Black Lives Matter said on its Facebook page that the mall protest -- on what is one of the busiest shopping days of the year and at the nation's largest mall -- aimed to bring awareness to last month's deadly police shooting of Jamar Clark, a black man from Minneapolis.

Protesters, who gathered around 2:30 p.m., were met with officers using a loud horn to say the demonstration on mall property was not authorized. The officers then moved forward until everyone exited.

Bloomington Police made four arrests related to the protests, the Mall of America told ABC News. Three were arrested for trespassing and one was arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct, the Bloomington Police said.

A fifth person was arrested on unrelated charges, the mall said. Police said that arrest was for an unrelated warrant.

There were no reported injuries and no reports of property damage during the demonstration, police said.

Approximately 80 stores were closed for about an hour while law enforcement officers escorted protesters off mall property, the Mall of America told ABC News. The rest of the Mall remained open, the mall said.

"Mall of America has a longstanding policy banning political demonstrations and protests on our private property," the mall said. "That policy is in place to protect the safety of all Mall of America guests, employees and tenants. The organizers of today’s protest were well aware of that policy. We respect the rights of free speech and peaceful assembly. However, the courts have affirmed our right as private property owners to prohibit demonstrations on our property."

Earlier, the Mall of America unsuccessfully sought a court order to stop the protest. Three organizers were banned from attending, but the judge said she doesn't have the power to prevent others from showing up.

"We are a leader-full organization," Kandace Montgomery, one of the organizers barred by the judge's order, told the Associated Press. "Just barring three of us does not mean that you've stopped our work."

Black Lives Matter did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Storms and tornadoes hit the south Wednesday afternoon, leaving at least seven dead -- including a 7-year-old boy -- and injuring at least 40 more while leveling homes and causing other damage, according to officials and the National WeatherService.

Two other people were missing, officials said.

As of Wednesday evening, there at least 21 reports of tornadoes and confirmed twisters in Iowa, Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the NWS, including a "large and extremely dangerous" tornado near Oxford, MS.

The NWS in Memphis released a map showing the track of an "exceptionally long-track, violent tornado" that hit Northern Mississippi.

Two people were found dead and two others were missing in Benton County, Mississippi, in the northern part of the state. Further information was not immediately available.

A 7-year-old boy and another person were found dead as a result of a storm in Holly Springs, Mississippi, according to the mayor. No further details about the circumstances were immediately available. At least 15 people were injured there. Search and rescue efforts will continue overnight, Mayor Kelvin Buck told ABC News.

Dramatic photos of the storm bearing down on Holly Springs emerged Wednesday night.

At least six counties reported damage in Mississippi, where at least 40 were reported injured, and search and rescues were being conducted there.

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Tornadoes and Storms Hit the South and Midwest, Leveling Homes and Causing Injuries (ABC News)

One of the storms, a reported tornado, hit Bellevue, Mississippi, damaging 10-15 homes, at least 7 of which were destroyed, according to the Coahoma County Emergency Management.

Five injuries were reported there and 2 additional severe injuries were reported near Shannon Airport, in the Clarksdale, MS area, the department said.

In nearby Como, MS, at least two homes were damaged.

In Perry County, Tennessee, there are two confirmed fatalities.

In Wayne County, Tennessee, there was major structural damage to several buildings and homes in the area, but it was unclear how many, according to Wayne County Sheriff Ric Wilson. There were several injuries as well, he said.

In Atkins, Arkansas, police, fire and rescue officials were dispatched to a residence on an entrapment call. High winds and heavy rain had caused a large tree to uproot and fall onto a house. An 18-year-old woman and an 18-month toddler were inside. The toddler was extricated by emergency personnel and transported to an area hospital. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

Some 68 million Americans were forecast to be in the path of the storms Wednesday night.

A "particularly dangerous situation" tornado watch was issued from Monroe, Louisiana, to Jackson, Tennessee, meaning there was a good chance of long-track tornadoes.

In addition to Mississippi, severe storms were predicted for parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Alabama.

Associated Press Videos
Computer Glitch Frees Washington Inmates Early

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — An error by Washington state's Department of Corrections that resulted in wrongly calculated sentences for about 3 percent of the prison population led to the early release of more than 3,000 prisoners in the state since 2002.

At a news conference Tuesday announcing the error, Gov. Jay Inslee said he has ordered immediate steps to correct the longstanding computer glitch.

"Frankly, it is maddening," Inslee said.

Authorities say a July 2002 state Supreme Court ruling required the Corrections Department to apply good-behavior credits earned in county jail to state prison sentences. However, the programming fix ended up giving prisoners with sentencing enhancements too much so-called good time credit.

Sentencing enhancements include additional time given for certain crimes, like those using firearms or those committed near schools. Under state law, prisoners who get extra time for sentencing enhancements cannot have that time reduced for good behavior.

An analysis showed as many as 3,200 offenders were released early, and another 3,100 who are still incarcerated had inaccurate release dates.

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Washington Gov. Jay Inslee speaks during a news conference in Olympia, Wash., Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015 …

Inslee's general counsel, Nicholas Brown, said most of the errors were 100 days or less. In some cases, inmates were released just a few days early, but at least one person who is still incarcerated had a release date that was off by about 600 days.

When asked if any of the prisoners who were released early committed additional crimes, Brown said, "We don't have the answer to that."

Based on a prior Supreme Court ruling, most of the affected offenders won't have to go back to prison. But officials have identified at least seven prisoners who were freed but haven't reached their corrected release date yet, and they will need to return to prison. Five of them have already been re-incarcerated.

The Department of Corrections was first alerted to the error in December 2012, when a victim's family learned of a prisoner's imminent release. The family did its own calculations and found he was being credited with too much time.

A timeline provided by the governor's office shows the agency consulted with attorneys regarding the error the same month and scheduled a fix for the program. However, the coding fix was repeatedly delayed, and the governor says he didn't learn of the issue until last week, when corrections' officials notified his staff.

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State Department of Corrections director Dan Pacholke speaks during a news conference regarding erro …

"For reasons we still don't yet fully understand, that fix never happened," Brown said. Corrections Department Secretary Dan Pacholke, who took over as head of the agency in October and just learned of the error last week, also said he couldn't yet explain what happened.

"How that did not rise up in the agency to the highest levels is not clear to me," he said.

Republican state Sen. Mike Padden said the Law and Justice Committee he chairs will convene hearings on the early releases when the Legislature returns to the Capitol in early January.

"We will see what we can find out about this and whether any of these individuals have committed crimes and what crimes they committed when they should have been in prison," Padden said.

Brown said officials don't yet have a complete list of prisoners affected. The Corrections Department and governor's office have not released the names of those inmates who have been sent back to prison, or the name of the family who alerted the agency to the problem.

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In this Feb. 17, 2011 file photo, inmates walk past correctional officers at the Washington Co …

Inslee told corrections officials to stop releasing prisoners affected by the glitch until a hand calculation is done to ensure the offender is being released on the correct date. A broad fix to the software problem is expected to be in place by early January.

The governor said two retired federal prosecutors will conduct an independent investigation to figure out why it has taken so long to correct the problem.

"I have a lot of questions about how and why this happened, and I understand that members of the public will have those same questions," Inslee said.

Pacholke said he welcomed the external investigation.

"The agency should be held accountable for this breach," he said.

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Associated Press correspondent Nicholas K. Geranios in Spokane contributed to this report.