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Minneapolis

Minneapolis: Anti-Racism Uprising Infiltrated By Extreme Right

August 15, 2020 Andre Vltchek, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The city of Minneapolis is where it all began. It is where the last drop fell on the surface of a proverbial overflowing lake, causing the dam to burst, consequently starting to destroy the foundations of the empire. A death of just one single man can, under certain dreadful circumstances, put into motion the entire avalanche of events. It can smash the whole regime into pieces. It can fully rewrite history, and even change the identity of a nation. It can… although it not always does. George Floyd’s death became a spark. The city of Minneapolis is where the murder occurred, and where the ethnic minorities rose in rage.

Minneapolis Reneging On George Floyd Promises

August 14, 2020 Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
At the height of the Minneapolis rebellion, a majority of the city council announced they would move towards “disbanding” their police force, in response to Black Lives Matter “abolition” demands. It turned out that what the councilpersons were actually proposing was a name change, retaining a force of armed cops in a new “Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention” with a “holistic, public health-oriented” mission. But even this palliative was too much for the Minneapolis Charter Commission, which voted to delay putting the police reorganization question on the November ballot, effectively killing the measure. The city is currently required to maintain a set ratio in the number of cops per resident. 

Minneapolis: ‘Umbrella Man’ Was A White Supremacist

July 31, 2020 Libor Jany, Star Tribune. , , ,
A masked man who was seen in a viral video smashing the windows of a south Minneapolis auto parts store during the George Floyd protests, earning him the moniker "Umbrella Man," is suspected of ties with a white supremacist group and sought to incite racial tension, police said. A Minneapolis police arson investigator said the act of vandalism at the AutoZone on E. Lake Street helped spark a chain reaction that led to days of looting and rioting. The store was among dozens of buildings across the city that burned to the ground in the days that followed.

Minneapolis Is Trying To Punish Transit Workers Who Wouldn’t Help The Police

June 15, 2020 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. , , , ,
The Amalgamated Transit Workers union’s public support for the uprisings, and some members’ public refusal to do work that helps the police, sparked praise and inspiration around the country. As the Black Lives Matter protests spread, so did transit workers’ refusal to assist in police crackdowns. In New York, bus drivers refused to transport people arrested at protests, as crowds cheered them on. “None of our bus ops should be used for that,” J.P. Patafio, vice president of New York’s Transport Workers Union Local 100, told Motherboard on May 29. Ryan Timlin: We are working on a class-action grievance because they cut the pay for those who refused to transport state troopers. I hope it helped protesters. To be honest, I don’t know if it did. It clearly excited people, especially the letter of solidarity.

Minneapolis Organizers Are Building The Tools For Safety Without Police

June 13, 2020 Jae Hyun Shum, Truthout. , , ,
In 2018, members of the Minnesota grassroots groups Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective dropped a banner at Minneapolis City Hall. On it were two lists: on the left, three budget items on the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) budget, totaling $9 million. The right side was significantly longer, listing programs and organizations where the city could invest those $9 million to promote community safety — like domestic violence programs, housing and harm reduction. We were calling on the city to move our community’s dollars out of the violent, untrustworthy MPD, and into programs that actually keep us safe. That year, the city council moved $1 million from MPD’s budget into violence prevention — a drop in the bucket of the MPD’s $180 million budget, but a significant investment for underfunded anti-violence work.

Violence Towards Protesters Shows Why Many Want To Abolish Police

June 8, 2020 Kim Brown, The Real News. , , ,
Welcome to the Real News. I’m Kim Brown. After several sustained days of protest in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd on May 25th, the epicenter of this latest uprising movement, Minneapolis, is experiencing an over militarized response with Minnesota National Guard troops joining alongside Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Police law enforcement agencies in attempting to quell the uprisings. But organizers on the ground there are using their ingenuity to coordinate mutual aid and redistribution efforts, plus providing a platform for the solution to the crisis of over-policing and brutality, get rid of the police altogether. Well, joining me to discuss this today is Tony Williams. Tony is an organizer and a police abolitionist in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis City Council Members Consider Disbanding The Police

June 7, 2020 Hannah Jones, City Pages. , , ,
If you’ve been tuned into the Minneapolis public safety scene, you know that for years, Reclaim the Block and other grassroots community groups have been asking the city to do one thing: stop investing in policing. Budget meeting after budget meeting, they’d turn out with their petitions and signs, demanding the city put less money into its police department and more money into programs that stop crimes from happening in the first place – affordable housing, addiction counseling, violence prevention programs. The council's been listening. “I think we’ve had a vision for a while of wanting to see another kind of city response to those [911] calls,” says Council Member Steve Fletcher, whose Ward 3 covers parts of downtown.

Minneapolis City Council President Wants To ‘Dismantle’ The Police

June 5, 2020 Nick Visser, Huff Post. , , ,
Lawmakers in Minneapolis are planning to vote on the first slate of changes to police forces following the death of George Floyd, with some local leaders saying they want to “dismantle” the department amid nationwide protests calling for systemic change. The Minneapolis City Council will vote on a temporary restraining order Friday to institute immediate changes to the police department that may include increased accountability and shifts in use of force policies. But the body’s president, Lisa Bender, and councilmember Jeremiah Ellison wrote Thursday they hoped to ultimately replace law enforcement with a “transformative new model of public safety,” calling such changes long “past due.”

Action To End Media Bias Against Victims Of Police Violence

June 4, 2020 Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Protesters are gathered outside WCCO, where Bob Kroll’s wife Liz Collins works. Kroll is the president of the Minneapolis Police Federation with a checkered past. Organizers refer to “Bob Kroll and the Art of the Coverup”. Day 9 of Minneapolis protests for George Floyd. Our coverage started on May 26.

Majority Of Americans Support Uprisings, Disagree With Trump

June 3, 2020 Chris Walker, Truthout. , , ,
As President Donald Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act to use aspects of the U.S. military against Americans involved in the demonstrations in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week, polling so far shows that most people are not happy with how he has handled the situation. Indeed, the data demonstrates that a majority of Americans appear to be in support of the protests in general. A Morning Consult poll conducted on May 31 and June 1 — several days after demonstrations began in protest over Floyd’s killing at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer who held a knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly 9 minutes — finds that 54 percent of Americans either strongly support or somewhat support the protests that are going on. Conversely, just 22 percent say they somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the demonstrations.

Nothing Is Certain But Death, Taxes, And Police Infiltration Of US Protests

May 31, 2020 Caitlin Johnstone. , , ,
Local outlet KHOU 11 News was told by the Houston police department that protests over George Floyd’s murder would be attended by both “uniformed officers and plain-clothed officers”. This admission cannot be found in KHOU’s reporting any longer, but it has been screenshotted and still shows up on Google searches as of this writing. In New York, protesters have conclusively worked out that cops posing as demonstrators are currently wearing white armbands to identify each other. Ways of identifying plain-clothes cops are being circulated by protesters on social media. None of these people are paranoid or irrational. For generations it has been a well-established fact that police will reliably infiltrate protests and political movements, and it remains so to this day.

‘Justice For Iyad, Justice For George’

May 31, 2020 By Oren Ziv, +972 Magazine. , , ,
Hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians demonstrated Saturday evening in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv against the killing of Iyad Hallak, a Palestinian man with autism who was shot dead by police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City. Hallak, 32, was on his way to the special education school he attended and worked at near Lion’s Gate when Border Police officers began pursuing him, claiming he had been holding a weapon. Hallak reportedly fled and hid behind a nearby dumpster, where the police officers shot and killed him. No weapon was found at the scene of his death. Both officers were detained in the wake of the incident; one was released under restrictive conditions, while the other is under house arrest. In Tel Aviv, over 200 people protested outside the city’s police headquarters while over 150 left-wing activists, including a dozen Palestinians, marched on Jerusalem’s King George Street.

The Blue Plague And Black Death

May 31, 2020 Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The pathogen that kills Black people at two and a half times the rate of whites took the life of 46 year-old George Floyd, this week in Minneapolis. Floyd’s last words were, “I can’t breathe,” much like the desperate utterances of plague victim Eric Garner, struck down in 2014 in New York City.  Unlike the still raging Covid-19 virus, which is virulent among Blacks of both sexes, the Blue Plague is especially lethal to Black males of all ages. According to researchers at Rutgers University and the University of Michigan, 1 in every 1,000 black boys and me  will be fatally stricken by the Blue Plague at some point in their lifetimes – at ages ranging from 12 year-old Tamir Rice, snuffed out in Cleveland in 2014, to 50 year-old Walter Scott, who fell victim to the pestilence in North Charleston, South Carolina in 2015.

Veterans For Peace Calls On The Minnesota National Guard To Stand Down

May 31, 2020 Veterans for Peace. , , ,
Veterans For Peace calls for the immediate withdrawal of the Minnesota National Guard. We are appalled to see military weapons, vehicles and equipment once again deployed in U.S. cities to control community members who are reacting to a long history of state-sanctioned violence. When an already embattled community is subjected to militarized intimidation, by design, their environment becomes a war zone. We call on all those who are serving with the National Guard to refuse to serve violent and racist interests. Veterans For Peace denounces the ongoing instances of police violence against Black bodies and people of color, this time resulting in the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We also stand in opposition to the State of Minnesota's and the Minneapolis police force's militarized response to the right to protest.

The US Military Is Monitoring Protests In 7 States

May 31, 2020 Ken Klippenstein, The Nation. , , ,
In addition to Minnesota, where a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, the military is tracking uprisings in New York, Ohio, Colorado, Arizona, Tennessee, and Kentucky, according to a Defense Department situation report. Notably, only Minnesota has requested National Guard support. The documents were originally stored on an unclassified server but were subsequently “elevated” to a classified system. While the documents reveal significant National Guard force capabilities in each of the seven states, one Minnesota Guard member expressed concerns about the troops’ lack of training in responding to civil unrest. One document pertaining to the Minnesota National Guard, marked “For Official Use Only” (FOUO), describes one operation’s purpose: “Augment MN State Patrol Civil Disturbance Operations with a show of force.”
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