"A man on the corner wiped his eyes while holding a gas mask. "You OK?" I asked. He shook his head. "I should have put my mask on sooner," he told me. I pulled on my own as I approached the mass of protesters just beginning to gather. The eye shield crystallized like a windshield in the cold. When the sun hit, I could see nothing. I pulled the mask back off."
"On Saturday, three months to the day after Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem's opening salvo in Minneapolis, federal agents were filmed shooting a legal observer multiple times at point blank range, including after his body went limp. Alex Pretti-a 37-year-old lawful gun owner, per police chief Brian O'Hara-was declared dead at the scene. The assembly of protesters was declared unlawful shortly after."
"The shooting, which took place on the immediate heels of a citywide strike, has further solidified Minneapolis as ground zero for the Trump administration's war on immigrants and the growing resistance to it. The afternoon prior, tens of thousands descended upon downtown Minneapolis, armed with cardboard signs and snow goggles, as part of the nation's first general strike in eight decades."
Protesters in Minneapolis encountered flash-bangs, tear gas, and cold weather as they donned gas masks and built improvised barricades of dumpsters, a mattress, and a car. Riot police and federal agents formed behind yellow crime-scene tape while protesters attempted to shield the crowd from less-than-lethal weapons. Federal agents were filmed shooting a legal observer, Alex Pretti, multiple times at point-blank range; Pretti was declared dead at the scene. Tens of thousands had marched in a citywide general strike, and residents renewed calls for ICE to leave after a January shooting by an ICE officer who remains uncharged.
Read at The Nation
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