Report from Minneapolis

[LAS14]

4. Update #2

Last edited Sat May 30, 2020, 11:54 AM - Edit history (1)

E-mail from a friend in Minneapolis.

Well, the MN National Guard, hundreds of riot clad State Patrol members and the Mpls Police Department couldn’t enforce the 8pm curfew last night. All over Minneapolis there were fires, looting again, more gun shots - especially from pickup trucks with white nationalists “patrolling” the neighborhoods with long guns sticking out of their windows. Gov. Walz admitted just now that they had vastly underestimated the size and level of rage of crowds. Tonight they are going to triple the presence of all forces. But those that are causing the trouble just go around police road blocks, or suddenly pop up in different neighborhoods. It takes the Guard and State Patrol awhile to get to a new location. Before they arrive the looting and fires have already begun, and as soon as the rioters see the cops or Guard they disappear, and pop up some miles away.

This is a version of urban warfare - one side has matches, crow bars and a sense of righteous rage, the other side has billy clubs, rubber bullets, flash bang crowd control explosives and tear gas/mace. It is not even close to two equal sides. One side has the overwhelming force. The other side has speed, agility and the willingness to run between sites, suddenly popping up as a crowd - it’s like flash mobs of rioters. Our drug store three blocks away, which was trashed and looted two nights ago, was trashed and looted and then set on fire last night. It is burning the morning as I write this. As in most cases of the fires, when the Fire Department shows up the rioters throw bottles, rocks, pavement stones and “bottles with accelerants” as they are describing them in the news - really they are Molotov Cocktails.

We met with our neighbors last night and set up a neighborhood watch - from within our houses since the curfew makes it illegal to be outdoors between 8pm and 6am. So I have my 12midnight to 2am shift of watching the alley and streets around our neighborhood for any small groups of men ( mostly men, a few women ) going down our street or alley. We wouldn’t confront anyone. We would just call the police ( which usually means they get there, in these riot conditions, within 2 hours ), film the people, and blow a very, very loud klaxon horn to hopefully bring too much attention to them for them to continue causing any trouble in our neighborhood. The police advised all homeowners to leave on every outdoor light and all indoor lights, to take away the element of darkness from looters. But again - so far no individual homes have been targeted.

There is a lot of fear in my neighbors. Xxxx also is feeling deeply afraid and fearful. Our city is exploding with no end in sight at this point. Al Sharpton, who was here with Jesse Jackson yesterday, is calling for a national “We Can’t Breathe” march/demonstration for the coming month, beginning with demonstrations and marches today in Minneapolis. There’s also a march in NY city today. I will go to today’s march/demo, although Xxxx is totally afraid that I will contract COVID or get caught up in a protesters or police riot. But I feel like white supporters need to be there. Few people wear masks during the day, or maintain social distancing, although everyone puts on masks at night so they can’t be photographed by police or Guard, and many carry jugs of milk to wipe the tear gas and mace out of their eyes. It’s a weird sight to see these strong young men, masked, often without shirts on, screaming, throwing things, running in and out of looted buildings, confronting the Guard and police - all the while carrying a milk jug in one hand - almost comedic if not for the lives and income and businesses that are being threatened and lost.

Suddenly we have several National Guard helicopters hovering over our house at the moment. Apparently a group of looters are on the loose about 4 blocks south of our house, but again, not yet attacking individual residential homes but focusing on the businesses, including banks, gas stations, major retailers, auto repair and auto body places. The major focus is either liquor stores or ATM machines - and any stores that have big screen TV’s ( what else in our media crazed culture? ). My favorite neighborhood liquor store, owned by a family I bought from in the 60’s on, and whose current owner is the child of that family, has been destroyed. I met Matt, the current owner after his parents both died, when he was about 4 years old, anyways, East Lake Liquors has been trashed, looted, burned. And the photos of young guys trying to carry ATM machines away is almost laughable, if not so damn serious. Those machines are very, very heavy and almost impenetrable. So you see three or four guys carrying one out of a business clearly looking like they are breaking their backs with the weight. Suddenly they drop them and begin kicking at them - which may make them feel better but never opens the ATM and probably there will be lots of broken toes showing up in area hospitals. Again, it’s all laughable at one level - except for the terrible destruction and violence.

The most worrisome aspect of all this is the growing number of gun shots, directed at police, fire fighters - and too often between rioters who get angry at each other. That many guns in these demonstrations worries me more than anything. You add the white nationalists who are showing up armed to “protect the city” you have a volatile mix which could end up being a small version of a shooting war. For now, those shots are more random, though increasing in frequency late at night.

In the midst of all this, I am sorry to admit, many of us who advocate nonviolence, nonviolent alternatives to violence, nonviolent strategies - all of that - find ourselves unable to come up with a significant way of intervening. I guess it’s like any war - once the shooting starts ( in our case the looting and arson ) there is very little one can do until the violence ends. Even the Nonviolent Peaceforce, that puts civilian volunteers into violent conflicts around the world to protect innocent civilians, won’t enter a war torn area unless all sides have met together with Nonviolent Peaceforce staff ( together, not by email, ZOOM, etc ) and there are guarantees for the safety of intervenors and all parties sign an agreement that they want the Nonviolent Peaceforce to come into their area and will respect them. So we are left with very few options for creative intervention until the fires, the looting, etc, are over. In effect we are waiting for a violent response from police, National Guard and State Patrol, to put down the rioting, looting and arson, before we can hopefully begin to assert some nonviolent strategies in all of this. It is all very frustrating. Plus, so much of my life has been spent holding up nonviolence as an expression of our faith commitments. But these younger folks are not listening to traditional faith community leaders out of the Black or White communities. So my experience of the Civil Rights movement, with faith based leadership, the singing of songs, the chanting of less violent chants feels like something someone discovered in the back of their closet from a time long ago in the past.