Escalation

Minneapolis Is Not Okay. Neither Are We.

Dear Friend,

The first video I watched yesterday of the fatal shooting in Minneapolis shows a woman, just a few feet from the unfolding scene, wearing a pink coat. It took me a minute to realize she was filming the incident. Other folks noticed as well. I want to see the video pink coat took, wrote someone on Instagram. That video is now available. It’s hard to watch, but it’s the key to understanding what’s unfolding in Minneapolis.

There have been too many heartbreaking deaths lately — and each one matters. I know we might focus on different examples, depending on what stories we’ve followed most closely. But for me, what’s especially important right now isn’t just that someone died — it’s context.

I don’t in any way mean to minimize the death of 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Pretti was an I.C.U. nurse at the VA hospital where my cousin’s wife works, incidentally. (I don’t know if she knew him or not.) I know nothing about him other than what I’ve read, and it sounds as if he was a lovely person. Dedicated, caring, kind. As I wrote in my last letter, he is doing precisely what I would be doing if I were in Minneapolis. Protesting the presence and tactics of ICE.

What I still can’t figure out is why ICE is in Minneapolis in the first place. Yes, there was massive fraud — real and outrageous. (The facts are egregious, yes — but if you want the real story, you have to do real research. Nick Shirley’s video won’t get you there.) I’m not trying to downplay serious fraud. But fraud on a large scale isn’t new — and it’s certainly not unique to Minnesota. Also, the narrative about dangerous immigrants holds up even less well in Minnesota, which has something like 350,000 undocumented immigrants as opposed to Texas’s 2.1 million and Florida’s 1.6 million.

All day yesterday, I was checking in with friends and relatives in Minneapolis. (It is impossible to describe the collective stress they’re experiencing.) All day, my husband and I toggled between CNN and FOX. My family is from Minnesota, and nearly all of my extended family still lives there, so I’m even more plugged in than I probably would be if this were happening elsewhere. Fox seemed to be softening the ground for escalation by describing Minneapolis as a city out of control. It wasn’t, even in the aftermath of another shooting. Protesters flooded the intersection of Nicollet Ave and W. 26th Streetnear where the shooting occurred, despite the fact that city officials encouraged them to go home. But the protests were in no way out of control. I read that the National Guard was later deployed to keep the peace, but I can’t verify that this morning.

One of my beloved Minneapolis cousins — a rapid responder and legal observer — texted me yesterday: “Every little thing makes us ask, ‘Is this the moment he sends the military into our streets?’”

Here is an exerpt from Kristi Noem’s public comments about the fatal Minneapolis shooting:

“This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon on him and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers coming — brandishing like that, and impeding their work that they were doing. This individual showed up to a law enforcement operation with a weapon and dozens of rounds of ammunition. He wasn’t there to peacefully protest. He was there to perpetuate violence.”

But of course, one needs only watch the video to see that this is absolutely not true. (Pretti is in the brown coat, directing traffic and helping the woman knocked to the ground.)

This is what’s so disorienting. The story officials are telling doesn’t match what we’re seeing with our own eyes. I keep coming back to this: truth matters.

Our family and friends in Minneapolis are not okay. Our country is not okay. All I know to do is keep showing up. I don’t know where this is all headed, and that scares me. But I’m not looking away, and I’m here.

Always, here.

Sara