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[Bumped] Outraged, they came, protested, and then did a little shopping

In Email from AD reader Marion Stinnett who lives in Minneapolis I read:

Everyone has seen the videos of the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a hapless petty criminal. And now looting and arson are happening all over the city. How did a very civilized city come to this?

Well, progressives, of course. But beyond that, do folks know the City of Minneapolis operates a protection racket?

All of the adults on the city council have retired or been voted out, and the council is now composed of earnest young progressives like our boy mayor Jacob Frey. And what does every young progressive like Jacob fear the most? Being called a racist. We also have a few AOC types who want to seize the Lake of the Isles mansions for the (well-connected) people.

Generous welfare benefits combined with importing a few hundred thousand East Africans means that Mary Tyler Moore’s clean, well-run hub of tech, manufacturing, and agriculture is now rather troublesome. The Somalis were actually welcomed for their work ethic and strong family ties. But the next generation–this always happens with any ethnic group imported into a different culture–doesn’t remember what a hell hole they left, and resent that they’re not doing coke off Amber Heard’s tits like all the white people are.

So they get restive and look for opportunities for trouble.

Retail stores are soon found to be easy targets. Chain stores are the easiest. CVS and Walgreens and Chipotle will absolutely fire any employee who looks at a petty criminal in a mean way. The store manager is held responsible for shrinkage –loss due to theft– but if the manager even attempts to stop theft, he or she will be fired.

Now one might wonder how those two drug giants keep the doors open. The answer is the pharmacies. Those make so much money that the retail floor can lose quite a bit. It’s not unlimited; CVS just closed four or five stores in the highest theft areas. But they’ll suffer a fair amount.

Now add in the great progressive paranoia: I cannot stand to be called a racist.

So rather than risk that city and county officials decided to stop enforcing laws against retail theft. Remember that video from a San Francisco store of thieves cleaning out all the makeup in a drugstore in broad daylight? It happens here in Minneapolis also.

Here the thieves will grab a box of trash bags off the shelf, pull out a couple, and fill it with easily fenced stuff like Tide detergent, diapers, and small electronics. If there are cigarettes, they’ll jump over the counter and grab them, along with Similac baby food (that’s already behind the counter due to high theft). Then they will walk out, and if you stand in their way, you may get shoved down. Certainly all of the “Sir, please, stop” which is the corporate recommended solution, will not slow them down.

The really great thing is, a merchant can call the police while burning a DVD of the perp’s faces, and the cops probably will not show up. If someone is injured by the bad guys, probably someone will come and hand the manager a card with a case number, but that is all that will happen. I have seen this many times in many stores.

When this virus thing happened, the city actually announced that they would not prosecute retail theft and transit fare jumping, among other things.

So what is a merchant to do? Well, you have to pay protection, of course. Private security cannot do any more than talk to the thieves. But you can hire a member of the Badge Gang: an off-duty Minneapolis police officer.

This is very expensive. Cops here make 25 or more an hour in a regular workweek. But now it’s overtime, plus whatever “administrative” fees the city chooses to add. And they’re going to add it because these off-duty hours count toward retirement pay. Merchants have to raise prices, and you know that’s racist too.

Of course, the fact that the Auto Zone car parts store, across the street from the 3rd Precinct, has been paying protection for years didn’t help them last night when Arsonists For Justice showed up. The police say they will protect lives and property. However, the council members have made it crystal clear that they expect the cops to hunker down and take the medicine. So Minneapolis PD will not risk those lovely-retire-at-42-pensions.

That’s just how it goes in the 21st century in lovely, well-educated and progressive Minneapolis.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Wildman May 28, 2020, 11:15 AM

    They voted for it. They can live with it

  • Scott May 28, 2020, 12:34 PM

    You hit the nail on the head! I am so glad to live in Georgia where this type of rioting would not be tolerated (except for in the progressive Islands such as Atlanta or Augusta). Most of my neighbors have a gun safes full of weapons and ammo as well. When you stop prosecuting petty theft you open up your city to lawlessness.

  • Auntie Analogue May 28, 2020, 12:49 PM

    “[T]he city actually announced that they would not prosecute retail theft and transit fare jumping, among other things.”

    One. More. Time: “The fish rots from the head down.”

  • Casey Klahn May 28, 2020, 1:02 PM

    What’s the difference between this hell hole and a fukn Soviet state? Nothing.

    Where do I go for this Amber Heard benefit?

  • Alex May 28, 2020, 1:46 PM

    I guess they should have imported Koreans instead of Somalis. A few rounds from the roofs would clean that sh*t up nicely.

  • Neuday May 28, 2020, 1:49 PM

    You nice Minnesotans didn’t want to be so White, so you brought some diversity. Well, here ya go. Enjoy your vibrancy. You can have Freedom, Peace, or Diversity. Pick any two.

  • azlibertarian May 28, 2020, 1:49 PM

    Amber Heard? Never heard of her (until now). And now that I’ve looked her up, I think she’s too skinny.

    On the other hand, Kate Upton?

    Yeah, I might be convinced to do coke off her body. I don’t do coke in any form…diet, sugared, or narcotic. But Kate Upton might make me reconsider.

    Nah. Not even for Kate.

  • Stargazer May 28, 2020, 2:06 PM

    Another Food Desert in the making.

  • Rob De Witt May 28, 2020, 2:13 PM

    What?

    They didn’t hear that Frank Zappa was ashamed to be white? What more do they want?

  • Jack May 28, 2020, 3:02 PM

    That mess isn’t that big a deal really. I’ve been in black homes and hoods that look sorta like that mess year around and for years and the only time it’s ever cleaned up or looks any different is after a fire or a serious flood.

    “People” who live in environs like those don’t really care and while there are a few embers burning somewhere in my soul that sometimes makes me say that I wish better for them, life is always and surely exactly what you make it and it ain’t up to me.

    Jesus could return and establish His kingdom upon this earth and the blacks who live and act like these would fight Him to hold on to their lives and lifestyles and call him a racist Jew for suggesting that they’re wrong and that there is a better way. Personally, sometimes I don’t understand why the Lord would want to return to this place at all to this massive shit show suspended in space on a marble bowling ball.

  • Vanderleun May 28, 2020, 3:49 PM

    And…. it’s…. STARGAZER for the win!

  • Patvann May 28, 2020, 4:55 PM

    JUSTICE!!! JUSDICE!!! JUSDISS!!!
    (an diss, an diss, and some of dat!)

  • MIKE GUENTHER May 28, 2020, 5:51 PM

    Our company has a crew in St. Paul boarding up as many CVS stores as they can. I think so far, they have done three just today. We’re also on standby in some other cities that have possible”protests” scheduled. Jacksonville, Baltimore, ect.

  • Eric Brown May 28, 2020, 6:02 PM

    Anarchotyranny in action.

  • John the River May 28, 2020, 6:21 PM

    Amber Heard?
    ‘For Amber Heard? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Amber Heard!’

  • Rob De Witt May 28, 2020, 6:44 PM

    I know I should buy an idiot box and keep up with all this crap, but that’s not gonna happen.

    Whodafuck is “Amber Heard?”

  • TrangBang68 May 28, 2020, 7:01 PM

    Adam Smith said “there’s a lot of ruin in a nation” It seems like it’s starting to shake out. Keep your powder dry

  • Ulysses Toole May 28, 2020, 7:21 PM

    This is a great time for candidate Jason Lewis (US Senate R MN) to exploit the DFL stranglehold. MAGA hat wearing people should line the streets of both Lake St and Marshall Ave with T-shirts that state “We believe “George Floyd” and on the back, “Stop voting DFL”.

  • Gordon Scottll May 28, 2020, 7:46 PM

    Today things got worse. They began to use social media to organize looting in St. Paul, and some of the suburbs. Target has now closed and boarded up 26 stores. CVS and Walgreens have closed all stores inside the beltway. That is not the only looted Cub grocery store; I’m not sure how many at this point. But the one nearest me on North Broadway was under siege. And someone called one of the nearby biker groups. They all roared past my house–there were a lot–and to the Cub. I do not know any more than that.

    The initial damage attacks were caused by Antifa. The looting began just because they figured that the cops were more or less trapped in the 3rd precinct, and even though Target was just across the street, that the cops would not respond. The cops did not respond.

    Now in some of the other towns the police are being a bit more aggressive.

    I am very sure there are at least 200 who made the trip from Chicago to take advantage of the opportunities for property liberation here. More will come.

    Both St. Paul’s and Minneapolis’ mayors are in very deep over their heads. The governor appears to be also. He’s managed to rack up nursing home deaths such that 80 percent of Minnesota deaths are there, and they’re STILL shipping sick people to them. Now this…the National Guard should have been put on alert Thursday morning. Instead the governor waited until 4 p.m. It takes time to get everyone together and briefed and armed and deployed.

    All of these stores that are closed or looted or torched? They are where I make my living, or used to. But I guess there will be lots of work cleaning and restocking.

  • Gordon Scott May 28, 2020, 7:57 PM

    Part of the unreality is that you will see some idiot carrying stuff out of a store, and there’s 10 people videoing it with their phones. But fear not. At some point the looters are going to realize that all of those phones are more valuable than some damn Target lamp.

  • DWEEZIL THE WEASEL May 28, 2020, 8:20 PM

    Well, sports fans, it would seem that the chickens of Humphrey-McCarthy Land have come home to roost. Add the syphilitic, corrupt, heretical teachings of the ELCA-politically correct theology, and the witches’ brew of “Progressivism” is complete. The clueless sheeple of the Land of A Thousand Lakes voted for this mess. They own it.
    The scary thing is the Minneapolis-Saint Paul nexus is also a mirror image of SoCal, Portlandia, Seattle, Chicongo, and every other Blue Hive in Amerika. The wealthy leftists who can escape are now showing up in my A/O of North Idaho. But since they cannot shut up and are constantly either running for local offices or financing their useful idiots to do so, their dance cards are all filled up. Make you lists and check them twice. Things will not end well for the FSSA. Bleib ubrig.

  • Chris May 29, 2020, 4:17 AM

    Check out WRSA Blog. They have video up of the COP who kicked off those riots smashing the windows out of the autozone store,dressed in all black with gloves,mask,and an open umbrella.
    He’s been identified,and….he’s gone.
    They’ve been doing that crap since j Edgar Hoover ……..

  • Callmelennie May 29, 2020, 5:42 AM

    Justice? There aint no justice. There JUST US …….. looting.

  • Callmelennie May 29, 2020, 5:51 AM

    I’m not white, but there are times when I wish I wasn’t black ….. jes fuckin’ wi’ you

    Fareeq Abdul Zappar

  • Gordon Scott May 29, 2020, 6:32 AM

    Yeah, right Chris. The cop who is the chief suspect is over at the Auto Zone kicking out windows.

    That cop and his family are in hiding, as there is a 24/7 protest at his house.

    If you are a store owner, or a retail employee in Minneapolis, it became abundantly clear in the last three days. The City of Minneapolis does not give one shit about you or your livelihood, your safety, or your property. They care more about looters. Oh, and a CNN crew.

    I’ve been saying this for years. In fact, our boy mayor Jacob Frey was luvved, luvved by businesses in his downtown district when he was on the council. Not because he got anything done for them; they all said he talked a lot but did little. No, his claim to their support was that he listened to them. None of the other 12 council members would listen.

    And every retailer learned that it was useless to call the police. They would not come, would not seek, would not bother to hand a case to the prosecutor because the prosecutor would ignore it.

    If you were an independent retailer, you had some degree of freedom to threaten and hell, drag thieves into the back room for a beating. It happened. The Mexican-and Muslim-owned stores would tolerate a lot less. But CVS, or Walgreens, or Target, or Auto Zone, either had to just take it, or hire the Badge Gang. And we learned this week that the Badge Gang won’t even cross the street to stop a looting.

    24 metro Target stores are now closed, all the way out to the third-ring suburbs. CVS and Walgreens have boarded up those stores that weren’t already looted. Every pharmacy and pawn shop has been looted and burned in a zone that saddles I-94 well into St. Paul.

    Can you fill a prescription in Minneapolis today? At the county hospital, and the other big two, perhaps.

    Oh, they busted out the very, very expensive Pelli-designed windows at the library. Because justice, man.

  • Casey Klahn May 29, 2020, 6:52 AM

    My son and I were talking about how the national guard had been called in but there was no evidence of them in the fight (so to speak). I told him this was a democrat state (MN) and city, and that some people just like to watch the world burn. Governor’s in charge, and he’s in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (OHFUK).

    2 minutes later my son linked a tweet to me saying, in the news, that the guard was there with orders to do nothing.

    I don’t know why I’m not in charge of absolutely everything.

    I’ll go farther. BLM and Antifa are the armed enforcers of the dems and the left. Corona Virus is over, big legal troubles are mounting for the dems (Obama admin), their candidate is a shitshow(TM), and Trump looks strong to win in November. Aside from this, I was seeing how that before the riots, Anitfa were out protesting the re-opening. Yes, that’s right. They were FOR the government shut downs. The “anarchists”…

    Sound of shells being racked in the twelve…

  • Karen May 29, 2020, 7:19 AM
  • ghostsniper May 29, 2020, 7:23 AM

    Lookin’ like Chauvin (the gov’t jackboot criminal) and Floyd (the check forging criminal) worked at the same club. Bad blood between them? The boot already knew the forger and put the necessary time in killing him. The accomplices on the scene knew this too and facilitated. Burn baby, burn.

    BTW Casey, if you have to rack the slide you’re already too late.
    My 870 holds 7+1 for a reason – an empty pipe is a useless pipe.
    Hollywood likes to rack gauges cause inexperienced people think it looks kewl.

  • Casey Klahn May 29, 2020, 8:20 AM

    Point well taken, Ghost.

    I will amend my comment to say that the militia is already on the scene in MN. That being the far left street gangs employed by the dems. Antifa, BLM, who knows how many inner city gangs. This is what Obama said he wanted; an armed force of his own bidding/ political favor.

    I miss the Thirties. At least the armed political militias had well-tailored and designed brown uniforms with cool hats and belts and such. The torn black hoodies and sweat pants does not envisage power to my eye.

    Anyway, they all bleed the same.

    Trump: open America and rebuild the economy fast. dems: race war! Next slide!

  • Gordon Scott May 29, 2020, 9:22 AM

    Much more burned Thursday night. The National Guard arrived, but had no clear orders, and did little. The area around the 3rd Precinct, the center of protests, is now secured by a couple of hundred police.

    In north Minneapolis where I live, pretty much every business has been destroyed. None of this is in the news. They were still looting here as of an hour ago. The media are concentrating on downtown and Lake Street.

    Unless you go to a hospital pharmacy, you cannot fill a prescription in Minneapolis.

    I don’ t think you can buy a bottle.

    Facebook is full of tales of how an off-duty St. Paul officer started the whole destruction thing. In other accounts it was the cop who killed the guy. None of the tales account for how so many people were eager to do the bidding of the cops by looting.

    The boy mayor is walking in little circles muttering, “but I thought if I was nice and kept them from being arrested, they would love me.”

    The governor is telling us how his top priority is protecting the media.

    The attorney general is telling us how we have to make the merchants feel safe again, after we have justice, of course. I have news for Keith, who was once my state representative and later my congressman: The merchants didn’t feel safe before the riots. How about you investigate why Minneapolis won’t defend the merchants from the feral?

  • Sixtyville May 29, 2020, 1:14 PM

    I blame everything on Garrison Keillor.

  • Jack May 29, 2020, 2:12 PM

    Ghost and Casey, targeting these freaks will be simple. Look for anything with a hoodie, purple hair, a face mask or a back pack and everything wearing Doc Martins or combat boots. That should cover 75% of the scum.

  • Gordon Scott May 30, 2020, 12:21 AM

    It is Saturday morning at 1:30 a.m. The curfew went into effect at 8 p.m., but it is not being enforced. Police, state patrol and National Guard were invisible until the remnants of a lawful protest wandered down the interstate freeway to Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue.

    This is where the 5th Precinct is. An Office Max, Subway, Dollar Tree and the last remaining Kmart in Minnesota have been looted there. That Kmart was scheduled to close in a few months. I think they will move up that timetable.

    A Kmart should be easy to defend because of the small entry area. Doing so would require cops to try. They are not. Fires are burning without hindrances in several parts of the city. Firefighters will not roll to a location now without police. No one has hurt a firefighter, but people can hinder them. The police are invisible.

    The bad cop was arrested and charged with 3rd degree murder and manslaughter. The charging documents reveal that the dead man did resist and refused to allow the cops to put him in the squad car. The autopsy found no evidence of strangulation or traumatic asphyxiation. He was hopped up, most likely on crack. The sweating plus the behavior of the man and woman in the car with him are a flashing neon CRACK sign, if you know the clues.

    Now if you’re really high on coke or crack and have a bad heart, well. . .the stress can do a person in. His behavior points to him having the crack equivalent of an anxiety attack. He and his pals should have been long gone from the store where he tried to pass fake money. He could have calmly driven away before the cop approached his car door. He would not have been pursued.

    But, he didn’t and the deadly chain of events continued. The cops all thought he was having a bad drug reaction. But Chauvin was watching the crowd, not his prisoner. When the less experienced cop suggested turning Floyd on his side, Chauvin refused.

    Even after Floyd went limp, became unresponsive and after another cop failed to find a pulse, Chauvin just knelt there until the ambulance arrived.

    The details, the drugs, the resistance, those all might be enough for a good lawyer to convince a few jurors to acquit. But the video will damn Chauvin. No lawyer will be able to argue away the clear and obvious suffering.

    The Republican state Senate majority leader called President Trump and begged for federal troops. MP units are on standby. The governor and his minions are having a press conference at 2 a.m., and they report that despite the 200 state patrol cops and 500 guardsmen, they just don’t have enough men. This is true. There are not enough if the plan is to have police stand in a line.

    Unsaid by the governor and unasked by the toady media, is why the governor failed to activate 2000 more Friday morning. Well, now President Trump will step in and that will be quite interesting.

  • Gordon Scott May 30, 2020, 12:51 AM

    Dang, do I know these guys or what? Well, I should. I’ve lived among them long enough.

    The governor’s presser: We thought the curfew would work. Our intel was faulty (note: some in the media were saying at noon that the cops had better be ready for tonight, because it was going to be bad). Despite our bravery and sacrifice, we just didn’t have enough men!

    So Governor Walz is activating 1700 more guardsmen. And he is, mutter mutter, considering accepting federal help.

    The thing is, all of these “protesters” are the Democrat base. Perhaps more the Bernie base than the Biden base, but Dems through and through. So Governor Walz and Mayor Frey are absolutely terrified of anyone in authority harming one hair on the protester head. Now if these people were wearing MAGA hats, then things would be different. The state really would need that $7 million morgue that they insist is critical to keep China Flu corpses on ice, need it for Tumphaterz.

  • John The River May 30, 2020, 7:46 AM

    Someone else was killed by a Minneapolis cop…
    On July 15, 2017, Justine Ruszczyk, also known as Justine Damond, a 40-year-old Australian-American woman, was fatally shot by Police officer Mohamed Noor, a Somali-American Minneapolis Police Department officer, after she had called 9-1-1 to report the possible assault of a woman in an alley behind her house.
    Noor was on the other side of the vehicle and shoot the woman from the far side and past his partner. The woman was unarmed and dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe.
    Eight months elapsed before Noor was charged with the shooting.

    I tried to find photos or video of the riots and looting committed by the aggrieved white citizens of that neighborhood, but I failed.

  • greg May 30, 2020, 11:45 AM

    The word picture of Amber Heard’s Tits and coke, will long outlast any of the protest looting memories, because the first scenario is something I never heard of before. And I like brand new idea’s.

  • Gordon Scott May 30, 2020, 6:42 PM

    The “outside agitator” scenario is being tapped hard by the governor. Amazingly enough, the press is pushing back. Gov. Walz claimed 80 percent of the bad people were from out of state. The press has pointed out that of people arrested (less than 100 so far) 80 percent were from Minnesota.

    He’s also grasping for the “white supremacists” theme rather desperately. But a law enforcement source was quoted in the Star Tribune saying that that was nonsense, at least so far. People have traveled in. There does seem to be some young, white men leading some of the damage. But as any sensible person knows, in any white supremacist group, half of the dozen or so members are FBI informants.

    They shut down the freeways inside the beltway at 7 p.m., and the curfew is on again. Tonight there are 2800 National Guard troops; the governor activated the entire Minnesota National Guard. President Trump offered active-duty military police units, but so far they have not been asked for.

    It’s just after 8 p.m. and there’s a large group heading toward downtown from the 5th Precinct area, but a larger group remains at the 5th. This was the focus of last night’s action. But there were also fires and looting in other parts of town, including two blocks from me.

    A good sized apartment building was right next to a Dollar Tree/Auto Zone store that was set ablaze. The residents were told that no firefighting help was available. They did the best they could, and with luck on the wind, saved their building.d

    One protester obviously anguished over the death of George was shown on TV just now carrying a Molotov Cocktail.

    The cops are moving on these groups. It will be a lot more of a battle tonight.

  • Gordon Scott May 31, 2020, 6:49 AM

    It was impressive. The police moved on the crowd line abrest. They covered their flanks and had reserves to fan out and widen the line as they advanced across parking lots. The crowd was forced northward, but there was a blocking force further north to prevent the crowd from getting to the city center.

    Any group that tried to set up a line was swiftly rolled over with arrests. One group headed east to the bridges to St. Paul. But the St. Paul police had the bridges blocked.

    One guy was yelling at a group taking refuge under the Hiawatha overpass. “If you aren’t ready to die for this cause you can go the fuck home.” Two minutes later the police rolled through the group and scattered them.

    Local residents self-organized and defended the only intact grocery store on the east side. Residential streets were barricaded and patrolled. A Native American nonprofit has very thoroughly armed folks at all 16 of their properties. In my neighborhood there were residents sitting every few hundred feet, watching for suspicious people.

    There had been reports all day of vehicles with no license plates. I saw one, a gold Escalade with tinted windows. Police were told to stop them and identify the driver.

    Closing down the freeways, a surprise move, was very effective. Police were able to move quickly anywhere. Protesters could not. A few reporters got hit by marker rounds or rubber bullets, and a couple were pepper sprayed. It was a very different night.

  • Callmelennie May 31, 2020, 10:55 AM

    I know a thing or two about Islam so I can offer a couple possible motives for that Somali shooting of Justine Damond. Somalia has been a ultraviolent place of endless tribal feuding for 35 years. Mix in the factor of Somalia always being on brink of famine, and you have the recipe for a scorching case of PTSD. So, nice going, Minn-St Paul, in allowing a person from this background to become a PO

    Second, a fervent Muslim would be completely taken aback by a scantily clad woman approaching him in any circumstance. He’d view in as a willful mockery of Allah’s law. In his home country, this woman would have been severely lashed. So, this shooting was perhaps a rage reaction by a person with no impulse control to start with — a summary execution of Shari’ah law

    But hey, it would be Islamophobic to even consider this … So lets just drop it. Besides it was just a white woman

  • Tom Hyland May 31, 2020, 8:10 PM

    @ Gordon…. excellent reporting and very informative. Here’s some weird stuff going on ALL OVER the country. Who is paying for these piles of bricks appearing in cities from coast to coast?
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/its-setup-mysteriously-staged-bricks-appear-throughout-major-protest-cities

  • Just Me June 1, 2020, 8:42 AM

    This is the underground army of the radical left, the organized arm of the Bernie bros, showing a little of what’s to come.. Revolution is in the air, it’s thick and sticky like bbq smoke, it will linger for awhile. We are not done with this, I suspect they’ll fall back into their regular lives in the surrounding areas, guerilla tactics, and wait for the next call out. The performers in this cause are following orders from groups tied to Soros, that itself is a fact. They would rather rule over a burned down nation than participate in a functioning one.