Report from Minneapolis

[LAS14]

3. Update from this a.m. My friend lives half a mile from the scene.

. I was up most of the night guarding against the possibility of groups of looters and fire setters coming into the neighborhood. That didn’t happen last night. And now that the cop who killed George Floyd has just been arrested I am hoping that will tamp down the violence, not the protests. Also, the governor has said he will probably declare curfews for the next several nights. We neighbors set up two-person patrols for the next few nights, with cameras or iPhones, a loud Klaxon horn and a bright light to try to persuade people in a non-physical way to cease and desist. So far no one has come closer than a block away where a business was broken into and torched. This morning, as I probably said earlier, heavy clouds of black, acrid smoke are laying over the city. Our concern is that the heavy police presence near the police precinct building might push the looters and arsonists into the surrounding neighborhood. So far that hasn’t happened.