Minneapolis Rage!

 OK, first, I do not live in Minneapolis. I did for a few months when I was five, while Mom was sick and a much beloved aunt took care of me. My parents were born there, grew up there, met and married there, before moving to a variety of other locations during their long lives. I have a daughter and son-in-law who live there. While I was working, I spent a lot of time within its boundaries, learning to navigate in and out of downtown where every street entered and exited in a different area than the next, and you suddenly could find yourself on a freeway instead of across to the other side if you picked the wrong street. (I almost lost my courier job the first day  for that!) But I learned, so of course much has changed since I retired, new buildings I don't recognize, costing me my landmarks. I do manage anyway. Just much slower.

We had friends who lived there, eventually marrying each other, moving to Arizona some years before we did, then welcoming us down there and resuming the friendships once we also moved south. One was a formal witness to our official wedding.

In short, over the decades, it has held a lot of meaning for me, even while becoming unfamiliar.

I witnessed the influx of Somalis back when, met and conversed with several during waiting periods at work and got to know a lot about their customs. I watched the men pray on their rugs over in a corner of the larger area we all waited in for work to come our way. I'd enjoy seeing the wide variety of beautiful fabrics Somali women draped around themselves as they walked through downtown in obedience to their religion. I even chatted with some about it. We respected each other.

Returning to Minnesota after a decade, things have changed.  Covid happened. Major fraud happened, taking advantage of covid restrictions while purporting to fill in service gaps. The leaders were Caucasians, their followers mainly Somali immigrants. The white folks got the stiffest sentences, the Somalis at fault are still getting processed legally, while their community bore the publicity and blame, becoming as a community convenient scapegoats for anything identified as crimes to lazy minds.  When Trump came to power a second time, promoting a political agenda denigrating anybody not white as part of Project 2025, using race as an excuse to scoop up and deport whoever they found undesirable for whatever alleged "reasons", things worsened even more. 

Having a Democratic Governor who entered a national campaign against Trump, sometimes poking fun where it was earned by the "weird", though ultimately losing the election, made a powerful enemy for the state, with Somalis (now mostly American citizens) still being convenient targets and scapegoats. Once fraud, easy to decide it's always fraud by all of them. I'll repeat: lazy minds, adding they fit a dark agenda of the new federal powers.

I won't bother to list all the lies, corruption, unconstitutional actions etc., from the last year from the federal administration. Those could fill an encyclopedia. I'm known for long posts here, but not that long. Skip forward to recent weeks, when the idea of fraud was again convenient as a weapon to denigrate a community of non-white new Americans. This time it was an "influencer" named Nick Shirley who went through the area, himself perpetrating fraud, claiming another scandal, this time supposedly showing that a whole bunch of daycare centers were receiving federal funds to take care of young children who didn't exist. Never mind that the centers had been recently inspected by the state, and aside from a very few which had been closed for safety infractions, were open at their stated hours, and did have children on the premises. One of Shirley's lies concerned filming in the early morning hours a daycare which operates starting at 2PM for parents who have to work a second shift and choose daycare over raising "latchkey kids", home taking care of themselves. Another was not only open but remained so 7 days a week for parents who worked weekends.  

But it was just too easy to believe the video "evidence", especially if the lies fit your agenda of punishing a community and a state. Federal dollars were stopped, despite need, claims of fraud were made without evidence, and even spread out into other areas, to withdraw assistance from people needing help for basic things like getting dressed, or toileting, getting groceries or meds, or visits to and from their doctors. These are things a PCA does, which I expect to return to working as once my new shoulder (coming next week) heals sufficiently that I can give help rather than requiring my own help. (At least I don't have to pay Steve... or vice versa, unless you do as we do and count kisses. We'll get through it. I do worry about my client. )

On top of all that, add sending ICE into Minneapolis, in the guise of removing criminal immigrants. Note that despite many judicial cases this administration has lost, people's rights are still being violated. People are being picked up who carry proof of their citizenship on them, but ICE refuses to bother to look. I guess that's what happens when they pick people up on a bounty system. Bring in the bodies and let somebody else sort it out later... if the person is still findable, healthy, or even alive. Protesting is not allowed, even considered treasonous, according to our Idiot In Chief, or Puppy-Killer Noem. Lies are invented on the spot even  before facts are available, suggesting prepared scripts before any encounter. Protesters are abused, forcefully, chemically, and at the barrel of a gun. 

ICE murdered a woman this week in Minneapolis. Puppy-Killer Noem tells us not to believe what we saw broadcast far and wide from a variety of angles from videos taken at the time. The murder victim  was a "terrorist" according to Noem. What she really was is a Mom who just dropped her kid off, got tangled up in traffic trying to go home, got blocked in, pulled out when it became possible after being told to move, and in trying to avoid the ICE mess, and ICE personnel, moved her car a bit at a time in the safest way she could find. In exchange for her trying to leave per their original directions, they suddenly tried to pull her from her car when she had to get closer to them in order to leave the area.  She wasn't speeding, she wasn't attacking, she did her best to steer clear of ICE who for whatever reason started to swarm her, and when she refused to let them open her car door, one who had in no way from any of the many video angles been more than possibly lightly touched at crawling speed, shot her once through the windshield with his gun already drawn, then moved to shoot her twice through the open window. The car left without her having any control over it, quite likely already dead with her foot still on the gas, or at least already dying. The car crashed into two others parked down the street. 

None of the videos shows anything different! Claims that the shooter was sent to the hospital after being "run over by the car" are not borne out in any of the footage.

A doctor who was on the scene ran to the crashed car to try to help, but ICE would not let him near even after he identified himself.  A few minutes later an ambulance pulled up and they were also denied access to check her out and see if they could help. If she wasn't already dead, ICE guaranteed she would be.

Federal response is wildly different from what the videos show. We're told not to believe it, to listen to their lies instead.  Minneapolis police tell us they are trained to let a car leave rather than shooting after it, particularly if it's just a traffic infringement. After all, they have your license plate info, and can find you later. Plus too much chance of the wrong people being shot just for being close to the vehicle leaving. When I took the class for my CCP  (Concealed Carry Permit), the first thing, very well stressed, that we were taught, was to always know your background before pulling the trigger. If you didn't know what was behind the wall you can't shoot the crook in front of it. So who's on the other side of a fleeing car should your bullet exit the opposite window? Is there a kid in the back seat? 

Minnesota BCA has a great reputation for examining the evidence and pulling truth out of it for what happened and who did which. The FBI, which in the last year has shown more allegiance to Trump than to truth by the top powers that be, has taken over the case and kicked the BCA off of it. Who is going to unreservedly believe their findings in this case are truth, and not serving an agenda?

Anybody else feeling some MINNEAPOLIS RAGE here?