It’s little things. Here we are in Minneapolis’ third precinct, watching the trial daily, impressed with the prosecution, hoping against hope for justice, yet dealing with daily struggles.
Our neighborhood board has been hijacked by the defund the police faction, and we can’t get support for a precinct station to replace the one that was destroyed. A neighborhood business owner who was negotiating with the City to lease his space for this purpose received death threats, his business attacked, his children threatened. We have to go downtown now to file complaints, Witnesses and victims have to go downtown to give statements. Officers have to go downtown for real car and report writing.
A wonderful neighborhood taco shop on Lake street, survivor of last summer’s riots, experienced an attempted robbery. A white man asked to use the bathroom, snuck into the back room and grabbed wallets from purses. A neighbor witnessed this, took his picture and challenged him. He assaulted the neighbor, one of the workers and a child. He was subdued, he returned the stolen goods and the police were called. The police came, talked to him, and let him go without arrest.
No one understands why, perhaps it was an informant who was working with the police on bigger cases? Angry neighbors relate stories in response, of many similar and worse incidents at a nearby Taco Bell, including such treatment several times by Derek Chauvin. Robberies and carjackings are up, bold criminals operating in the daytime, knocking over the elderly.
We want our neighborhood back. We want to feel safe. We need to work to build trust. We will have more trials in the summer, and hopefully justice will prevail.
The leaves are starting to return to the trees after a cold winter here. Tiny buds bring a faint haze of green to the stark silhouettes, foreshadowing the annual return of spring, and hopefully a return to some normalcy from the cloistering of the pandemic.
Thank you all for being part of our extended community. My wife and I don’t know what we would’ve done without this site to help us get through the Trump presidency. We have a long way to go, though. Keep us in your thoughts.
