Breaking

“George Floyd Square“ in south Minneapolis is being cleared.

By…

…well, somebody:

But it’s been kind of interesting; reporters on channel 11 and channel 9 are both saying that, while city workers are doing the work, the city is not involved.

According to CBSN Minnesota, city workers began clearing concrete barriers from the area in the early hours of Thursday morning. Local network KSTP reported that angry community members have started arriving at the scene.

Bill Keller’s on-the-scene reporting at Channel Nine led with “this is a community project” – as if a “community group” (Agape, which to be fair is a well-established group in Minneapolis) could get a bunch of public works employees (who report to the. Mayor) out on the street at 4AM, to clear the most incendiary political hotspot in the city, if not the US, without the Mayor’s say-so.

Why, it’s almost as if the city of Minneapolis realizes leaving part of the city blocked off is not politically tenable, but the “progressive” wing of the DFL that runs the city doesn’t want an even more “progressive“ wing to use this against them next year.

(Because that is the option in Minneapolis; if you think Jacob Frey and Lisa Bender are bad, he’s not going to get replaced bye a Republican; he is going to be replaced by someone who makes Ray Dehn seem like Hubert Humphrey).

UPDATE: Oh, yeah – no cops, no how:

Not everybody’s buying it:

I’ll meet the city’s PR campaign half-way – I believe the MPD is being kept far from the scene.

Ready, yes.

Nearby in plain sight? No way.

This Is A Sincere Question…

…for any DFLers that happen to be reading.

Yesterday, on the one hand, DFL rep Jennifer McEwen, sounding as if she were nearly in tearms, chided her GOP colleagues for attacking Maxine Waters, who spent her weekend telling Demcorats to riot if they didn’t get the verdict they wanted in the Chauvin trial…

Right after that, the DFL moved a resolution condemning the National Guard – part-time soldiers who live among us all – for supporting the effort to keep “Anti”-Fa from burning down. more poor, immigrant and minority neighborhoods:

Do these people speak for you?

And if you deflect to “January 6”, in the seeming belief that there was no pollitical violence in this country before that day, I will mock and taunt you for a month straight, and you will deserve it.

Happy New Year!

Let’s get everyone’s predictions for the new year on record.

I’ll start:

  • After nine months of whinging “2020 is the worst year ever“, Americans will discover that events don’t read calendars. Things’ll stop sucking pretty much whenever they stop sucking.
  • Joe Biden will come out of the White House basement no more often after being sworn in than he did before.
  • Nonetheless, his mental decline will become so apparent that by autumn, the Democrats will attempt to remove him using the 25th Amendment. Of course, if Biden doesn’t resign, and Harris and the Cabinet have to vote to remove Biden under Section 4, while the Veep and Cabinet can temporarily remove him, throwing the issue to Congress…where a 2/3 vote is required to permanently replace Biden with Harris. Which presents Mitch McConnell with a bit of a dilemma: would it be better to leave Biden in place as leader of the Democrat party, flailing and walking into walls and wandering into odd tangents, or install a “president” who never got over 5% of the vote in any primary and is pushing an agenda that would motivate Republicans and conservatives like nothing since Obamacare?
  • Americans, fatigued by over a year of restrictions that, outside of a few liberty-first states, and armed with the gradually escaping knowledge that T-cell immunity has made vast swathes of the population already functionally immune, will start to treat Covid restrictions the way their great-grandparents treated prohibition.
  • While waiting for America’s idiot ruling class to wake up and smell the public health coffee (ew), China will gobble up vast shares of the world market.
  • With the trials pushed back to the start of summer, the George Floyd trial’s verdicts will lead to rioting that make Minneapolitans look on the last week of May 2020 as the good old days. By 2030, Minneapolis will be generally revealed to be a failed city along the lines of Detroit, Newark and NOLA.

Your turn.

Student Senate Is Haaaaaard

Minneapolis police note that they were kept from the crime scene of a recent shooting near “George Floyd Square“ near 38th and Chicago in south Minneapolis, and that parts of the “citizens committee“ that have turned the area around the intersection into a de facto “autonomous zone“ contaminated the evidence that could be used to try to prosecute the perps, if they are ever found.

A couple of the inspectors involved have emailed a few members of the student Senate… um, City Council.

To give the minimum possible credit where it is due, and indicate how very low the actual bar is, Councilman Andrea Jenkins seems to have a veered close to something within rifle shot of common sense in her response:

Jenkins told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she supports the memorialization of George Floyd Square and wants it to become a permanent fixture as she and others on the City Council pursue racial justice and police reform. But she does not condone any action which inhibits police investigations.

‘We want justice for everybody and it concerns me and I am not happy with what I read in the email,’ said Jenkins. ‘To somehow disrupt or delay that kind of response is completely irresponsible and an obstruction of justice.’

My fearless prediction; Jenkins will be castigated as a conservative reactionary, and will have a primary opponent from the left. be castigated as a conservative reactionary, and will have a primary opponent from the left.

Just In Case

Apparently, the Menards in the Midway was worried about rioting Trump supporters.

They stacked up huge pallets of lumber in front of the doors – just like they did during the George Floyd riots / May.

Apparently, those Trump supporters I’m going to riot.

Any day now.

Just like those waves of “white supremacist terror“ we’ve been assured are imminent for the past 12 years or so.

The Inmates

Don’t let the title – or the fact that it’s in the generally unforgiveable Slate, for that matter – put you off from reading this piece, “The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd “.

This piece captures not only the history of CUP Foods, the South Minneapolis bodega whose employee called 911 on George Floyd last Memorial Day, a Palestinian immigrant family that’s worked a couple of generations of butts off to succeed in a “transitioning” neighborhood through a couple of waves of blight.

More than that, it captures the successive waves of fervid racism (Black on Arab, Black on European, Arab and Black on European), community spirit, delusion, and the unlikely trifecta of community spirit infused with delusion and racism:

Toussaint Morrison, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Minneapolis, said he doesn’t actually see any problem with CUP Foods reopening. But he doesn’t necessarily think anyone should shop there…On CUP Foods reopening, he said, “I say get a Black-owned corner store near there, and say shop here. We’ll beat all of their prices. Even if we lose money, whatever.” The point, he said, is to keep Black money in the Black community: “Whether they open or not, it’s on us as a community to not buy their shit. It’s that simple.”

So – far from dismissing it because of a “woke” copy-editor’s inelegant titling, or its laughable origins (Slate, for flock’s sake), I urge you to read it as a guide to everything that’s going to slowly strangle Minneapolis.

And to maybe hang onto it as a time capsule showing future generatons how “community” became impossible.

Toward A More Awesome Union

The first requirement of an orderly society is order which must be imposed by an impartial judiciary.  That cannot happen when the judicial system is afraid of violence.

***

Old:

From: Chief Judge
To: All Employees

You may have read or heard that the Court House was locked down today for about 15 min. After a sentencing hearing on a homicide, the families of the defendant and victim engaged in a dispute that was broken up by deputies. Soon after, gun shots occurred on Wabasha and 6th St.  Deputies locked down the courthouse as a result of the gunfire. It is not clear to me if the events were related. 

Based on information I have received, no one was injured and bullet casings were collected. The matter is under investigation. It appears that at no time was our courthouse security compromised. The deputies took swift and appropriate action throughout this disturbing incident.

New:

From: Chief Judge Joe Doakes
To: All Employees

In the past, when the judicial system was subject to violence, we hid and hoped to be killed last.  From now on, when a violent situation arises, all employees shall report to the nearest Arms Locker where the Master at Arms will distribute restraints, gas masks, and weapons, at which time use of deadly force to protect both judicial property and employee lives is authorized.  Employees may stand their ground to do so; the requirement to retreat is suspended.

***

That ought to help. Now, let’s talk about the George Floyd trial, and about Supreme Court nominees.

Joe Doakes

The policies that’d go into effect if Mitch Berg were in charge – suffice to say it’d be more than judicial branch employees.

Once the governor declared “state of emergency” related to the breakdown of public order, the order to retreat would go the way of the Hibbing chopstick factory, and the sign of a weapon in the hands of a violent mob would serve as reasonable threat of death or great bodily harm, and one’s property would be every bit as defensible as lives.

Make me Governor, and this, I promise.

Shot In The Dark: Today’s News, Months Ago

Someone in the press leaked the body cam video of the George Floyd arrest. Taking nothing away from the tragedy or the anger that went along with it – “knee on the throat” isn’t a good look – but seeing this, I’m thinking Keith Ellison would need Vasily Ulrikh on the bench to get a Murder conviction.

I have little to add, except that this piece from two months ago is looking better and better.

Oh, yeah – strap in. Officer Chauvin will be acquitted of “Unintentional Second Degree Murder”, and the other three will get away with lesser included charges. It’s going to make the last week in May look like a kindergarten full of kids who broke into the Koolaid.

Rounds Two And…Three?

Like a lot of Twin Cities residents, I’m eyeing next spring – sometime after the scheduled March opening of the Derek Chauvin trial – nervously, remembering that the LA riots (at least the ones everyone remembers) began not with the pummeling of Rodney King, but with the acquittal of the four officers involved.

And here’s a fearless prediction (one I’ve already made): Chauvin will be acquitted of Second Degree Unintentional Murder – not because of any legal cop-fu, but because while I’m not a lawyer, I don’t think you need to be a lawyer to see why it’s going to be very hard to show that Chauvin was – check the emphasis, taken from the statute for 2nd Degree Unintentional Murder…:

(1) causes the death of a human being, without intent to effect the death of any person, while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense other than criminal sexual conduct in the first or second degree with force or violence or a drive-by shooting; or

Is a cop responding to a call “the commission of a felony?” I can see Alondra Cano believing that – but Ellison? Someone who’s ostensibly been to law school?

Unless there’s some bodacious lawyer-fu in store, or the Attorney General’s office plans on tampering with the entire witness pool, I’m just not seeing it.

But does the concept of qualified immunity mean there could be yet a third adverse verdict for George Floyd’s supporters and the Twin CIties’ far left’s many professional and amateur hooligans?

Was it “clearly established” on May 25 that kneeling on a prone, handcuffed arrestee’s neck for nearly nine minutes violated his Fourth Amendment rights? The issue is surprisingly unsettled in the 8th Circuit, which includes Minnesota.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit blocked civil rights claims in two recent cases with broadly similar facts: handcuffed detainees who died after being restrained face down by several officers. Unlike those detainees, Floyd was not actively resisting at the time of his death, except to repeatedly complain that he could not breathe.

While that distinction could make a difference in the constitutional analysis, we can’t be sure. Even if the 8th Circuit concluded that Chauvin’s actions were unconstitutional, it could still decide the law on that point was not clear enough at the time of Floyd’s arrest, meaning Chauvin would receive qualified immunity.

The 8th Circuit could even reach the latter conclusion without resolving the constitutional question, as courts have commonly done since 2009, when the Supreme Court began allowing that shortcut. To defeat qualified immunity in this case, says UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz, a leading critic of the doctrine, Floyd’s family “would have to find cases in which earlier defendants were found to have violated the law in precisely the same way.”

The whole piece is worth a read – and the whole concept of seriously reforming qualified immunity is something conservatives need to take an enlightened lead on.

Because it’s for damn sure the other side won’t.

Dear DFL: You Own This Town

The feds turn down Governor Klink’s disaster funding request:

The federal government has denied Gov. Tim Walz’s request for aid to help rebuild and repair Twin Cities structures that were damaged in the unrest following George Floyd’s death.

Walz asked President Donald Trump to declare a “major disaster” for the state of Minnesota in his request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on July 2. More than 1,500 buildings were damaged by fires, looting and vandalism in the days of unrest that followed Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis police custody, racking up more than $500 million in damages, according to Walz.

“The Governor is disappointed that the federal government declined his request for financial support,” [Walz spokesperson Teddy] Tschann said in a statement. “As we navigate one of the most difficult periods in our state’s history, we look for support from our federal government to help us through.”

The “disaster” was, of course, caused by sixty years of DFL governance that is swerving exponentially to the left, decades of mismanagement, a toxic culture run by white liberals more concerned with virtue-trumpeting than competence and justice, and of course by a city that simultaneously rolls out the red carpet for young, largely white, largely upper-middle-class radicals (the direct action arm of the DFL) which the city was packed full of when Mayor Frey made his ill-fated decision to evacuate law enforcement from East Lake Street.

Why should the American taxpayer – especially those who work hard to support competent government, almost invariably in red states – pay for the DFL’s decades of depraved indifference to their own incompetence?

You break it, you buy it.

MiniHealth Has Never Been At War With MiniPol

Some Henco Commisioners want to declare racism a public health crisis:

Hennepin County Commissioners Angela Conley and Irene Fernando plan to introduce a resolution on Tuesday declaring racism a public health emergency in the county.

“We need to be explicit about racism,” Conley said. “We need to say that at the root of the disparities is systemic racism . . . and we need to do it now while this conversation is ripe.”

Nearly a dozen other counties across the country have passed similar resolutions, many doing so in recent weeks as governments and businesses aim to address racism within their own organizations in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis…The move to declare racism a public health crisis is symbolic, but would also direct the county to consider racial equity in all of its decision making.

When you mix politics and science, you don’t get scientific politics. You get politicized science.

It is a strong contender to be Berg’s 21st Law.

Cultural Appropriation For Ye, But Not For We

This was the House Democratic leadership, doing their (nothing but) symbolic photo-op before the George Floyd funeral:

They’re wearing “Kente” cloths – apparently Ghanaian in this case, but there are similar adornments all through Africa. They have cultural significance.

And to Pelosi and her little claque, they are nothing but costumes.

Some actual Africans were not amused at the virtue-accessorizing:

But remember – don’t go eating burritos, honky.

Urban Progressive Privilege: when making the right progressive-y noises is enough, at least within your social circle.

If You’re Not A Cynic, You’re Not Paying Attention

In the wake of – or perhaps as a next chapter of the George Floyd riots, “Anti”-Fa are setting up an “Autonomous” enclave in Seattle. They are extorting businesses in that enclave for protection money.

And unlike Minneapolis, where President Trump steamrollered Governor Walz into sending a more-than-token National Guard force with threats of invoking the Insurrection Act and units of combat-veteran regular military to East Lake Street, the President is silent on Seattle.

People – including fellow Trump-skeptic Mike Cernovich – are asking questions (language NSFW, but who pays attention to that these days?):

Maybe I’m a cynic, but it seems simple to me: nobody is calling Washington a swing state. Their electoral votes are off the table – at least until the parts of Washington outside the Seattle/Tacoma metro area secede and join Idaho.

That’s why Trump “doesn’t care” about Seattle.

Or Pelosi, for that matter. Nothing’s moving Washington out of the “hard blue” column any time soon – least of all an insurrenction led by the children of her biggest donors.

Minnesota? It’s at least hypothetically in play, especially if suburban and exurban Republicans, alarmed by the collapse of the Twin Cities, and bolstered by the President’s strong alternative, turn out in apocalyptic numbers. As they will have to to stave off a complete Democrat majority at the Capitol.

And that’s why everyone – not just Trump – is letting Seattle turn into Beirut on the Sound.

Some Memorials Are More Equal Than Others

My brother died one month ago today.  No funeral – they were illegal.  Covid. It was SCIENCE!

Then the Covid rules changed: we could have a 10-people funeral.  That wasn’t enough for both our side and the widow’s side of the family to attend.  No funeral.  SCIENCE!

Then the Covid rules changed again: we could have a funeral, 25% capacity, social distancing, masks for all.  SCIENCE!

We’re burying my brother tomorrow.  Afterwards, we’ve rented a picnic shelter in the park to eat box lunch, watch a tribute video and share memories.  Well, some of us are.  The picnic shelter is open on three sides but has roof and one wall so it’s considered a “structure.”  There’s a 10-person limit in the picnic shelter.  The rest of us must stand outside and take turns rotating through, with masks, and social distancing.  Because Covid, you know.  It’s SCIENCE!

I can’t help noticing the crowd at the George Floyd memorial.  Capacity, social distance, masks – whatever happened to all that Science? 

Maybe it’s like rock, paper, scissors: Fire burns Science; Fire wins.  Instead of following the rules like a good little boy, I should have burned down a Black neighborhood. 

I’ll keep that in mind.

Joe Doakes

Well, torching any low-income or immigrant neighborhood will actually do…

Probably An Academic Question

Watching Mayor Trudeau crying with all the convincing grace of a rented mourner over the casket of George Floyd, at the not-remotely-socially-distanced funeral (violating the Mayor’s own directives, after a week during which he abandoned a fifth of the city to looters, reigned over press conferences that looked like outtakes from “Reno 911”, got caught like a deer in the headlights when asked what his “plan” was, got bailed out by the marginally-less-incompetent State administration, blamed the destruction (accompanied as it was by thick layers of left-sympathetic graffiti) on nearly nonexistent “White Supremacists” (who managed to somehow leave a thick layer of leftist graffiti and leave an amazing number of clearly labeled “black owned” stores more or less unscathed), I have to wonder…

,..is there some level of unintentional comedy below which the voters of the City of Minneapolis won’t go?

I’m No Lawyer…

…and I’ll leave plenty of room for those of you who are.

But as re Keith Ellison taking over the prosecution of the officers involved in the George Floyd case, I can’t help but think the following:

Hot Potato: Mike Freeman just got the most controversial case in his misbegotten career off his plate. He can’t help but be relieved to get this “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” monstrosity off his docket.

Priorities For starters, Ellison’s not trying the case personally – the head of his trials division is.

On the other hand, the MN Attorney General’s office, under a fifty-year-long series of DFL occupants (Ellison, Lori Swanson, Mike Hatch, Skip Humphrey and Warren Spannaus), has basically turned into a Better Business Bureau with guns, and a 1-800-ASK-GARY for political non-profits looking to harass businesses into compliance with their pet policies. I’m not gonna say the MNAGO doesnt have the expertise to prosecute a shoplifter caught on camera – but it’s not exactly been their front foot for the last, oh, couple generations or so.

I’m gonna guess the state’ll be paying a lot for “consultants” on this case.

A Charge Or Two Too Far: So let’s take a look – via my admittedly non-lawyer perspective – at the three charges. I’ll add emphasis to what I – again, a non-lawyer – think the “beef” is.

Murder in the Second Degree:

Whoever does either of the following is guilty of murder in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 40 years:

(1) causes the death of a human being with intent to effect the death of that person or another, but without premeditation

[(2) relates to drive-by shootings – clearly not applicable]

Subd. 2. Unintentional Murders. Whoever does either of the following is guilty of unintentional murder in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 40 years:

(1) causes the death of a human being, without intent to effect the death of any person, while committing or attempting to commit a felony offense other than criminal sexual conduct in the first or second degree with force or violence or a drive-by shooting; or
[(2) relates to killing people who’ve taken out restraining orders]

Now, let’s look at Murder in the Third Degree

(a) Whoever, without intent to effect the death of any person, causes the death of another by perpetrating an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life, is guilty of murder in the third degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 25 years.

[(b) relates to selling drugs to someone who dies of an overdose – not applicable here – Ed]

Here’s Manslaughter in the Second Degree.

 A person who causes the death of another by any of the following means is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and may be sentenced to imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $20,000, or both:

(1) by the person’s culpable negligence whereby the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another; or [several sections related to actions that don’t apply – the statute is linked, holler if you disagree – Ed]

So – knowing what we know now, what do you think is going to fly beyond a reasonable doubt?

That:

  1. The officers intended to kill Floyd while committing a felony offense – which would involve proving that “doing their jobs” was a felony? Or
  2. Unintentionally killed Floyd while committing an eminently dangerous act? You could say kneeling on someone’s neck might be eminently dangerous, and I might agree 100%, but qualified immunity – the doctrine that if one government employee gets away with something, they all get away with it – and the tactic is not completely outlandish, if discouraged, in police circles, might be a problem, here.
  3. The officers were culpably negligent and created an unreasonable (i.e., would fail to convince a jiury) risk.

The usual caveats apply: case law colors how statues are applied, and I’m not a lawyer.

But given that it appears to this non-lawyer that charging Chauvin with Second Degree murder was a) done to placate the crowd and b) find charges for the other three officers and c) looks like a very long shot, I have to wonder if they aren’t banking on, in effect, making a political statement and not bothering with justice.

Politics First: Being entirely a puppet of “progressives” with deep pockets, you knew Ellison was going to have to bump up the charges to…well, whatever he could get away with. The party he answers to needs to have a ritual stoning, or some other red meat to throw its constituents and, ideally, beat Republicans over the head with in the fall…

…without actually having negative consequences for the November elections.

Ellison, himself as graceful and fluid in his deflections as a German jazz band, telegraphed this during his initial presser, saying a trial would take “months”. Meaning – it’ll stay in the realm of political mud-throwing until after November, giving the DFL PR machine plenty of time to repair damage from the inevitable disturbances that erupt after Chauvin is acquitted for Second Degree murder (and, I can’t help but think, delaying that verdict until the depth of a Minnesota winter, deterring a lot of rioting).

Off Boat Pushed

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter’s dad was a cop.  I wonder what he thinks, seeing what his son has let the city come to.
Businesses at the intersection of Como, Front, and Dale Street, a mile or so from Mitch’s house. Sign says: “RIP George Floyd, BLM, minority-owned.”

Hoping to be eaten last is not a winning business strategy. But it’s all that’s left in St Paul.

Joe Doakes

That’s what occurred to me last Thursday, watching “black-owned”, “minority-owned” or, in some absurd cases, “community owned” businesses frantically post themselves to throw their white neighbors under the bus (not always successfully – Mexican restaurants in Minneapolis looked particularly hard-hit).

Follow The Hidden Money

It has become obvious there were two groups reacting to George Floyd’s death.  His family/friends/supporters who wanted wanted answers from government and were exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances; and the Antifa, looking to cause trouble.
Antifa has been very careful – there have been no homes destroyed, nobody killed, no personal danger.  They are destroying businesses to protest capitalism’s exploitation of low income and minority people.
Except . . . most businesses carry insurance and most of those policies cover “civil unrest” which means Antifa is really striking at insurance companies.  Fine, they’re capitalist organizations, they deserve it.  
Except insurance companies spread their risk over multiple lines – home, auto, business – so if the company takes a hit in the business line, they can cover it by raising rates in the home and auto lines.  Which means Antifa is really attacking every home owner and car owner in Minnesota.  Fine, they’re rich capitalist pigs, they deserve it, too.
Except . . . remember all those programs to help low income and minorities into homes?  The escalator to wealth?  The first step on the ladder?  Those homes were all purchased with loans that require the homeowner to maintain insurance.  For wealthy homeowners, no problem, pay the higher rates.  But for marginal homeowners, it’s an issue.  And it’s a bigger issue in the time of Covid, when minority and low income people have been laid off in higher numbers.  Which means Antifa is really attacking low income and minority homeowners.  
I know, it takes effort to understand your actions have effects which are SEEN and also effects which are UNSEEN.  it takes effort to see the ripple effect of Black homelessness downstream from burning some schmuck’s bar.  It takes effort to redirect your actions into productive, positive, beneficial work instead of mindless destruction.
But failure to think the problem all the way through, means you end up harming the people you intended to help.  That includes your supporters, like Governor Walz’ daughter Hope and Attorney General Ellison.  
Joe Doakes

We’ll need to revisit this in ten years, when the DFL power structure wonders where the &^%^% their tax base went.

The Fifth Killer

Police and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) deal with a lot of people in crisis – including various medical crises, exacerbated or caused by drugs, alcohol, mental illness, or physical pathologies.

Combining the stress of a contact with police, the medical episode and other contributing factors can cause all sorts of problems, some of them potentially fatal:

  • Excited Delirium – a physical condition involving, essentially, the brain and body speeding out of control. It sounds fun – I thought I was in an excited delirium when I met the Bangles. But no, it’s deadly serious.
  • Positional Asphyxia – where someone is in, or is being restrained in, a position where they can’t breathe – frequently because their chest is constrained from moving. When combined with the other effects of high stress, the blood becomes “acidotic“, which can quickly lead to cardiac arrest.

A standard method of dealing with Excited Delirium and Positional Asphyxia, while detaining and maintaining physical control over someone, is to turn them on their side. It’s easy enough, relatively, to maintain physical control – but their chest can expand, their diaphragm can expand and contract the lungs which, with someone in crisis, helps bring down the blood acids that lead to Acidosis, lowering the risk of cardiac arrest.

Or at least, that was what the Minneapolis Police Department was taught by Hennepin EMS, the paramedic service for Hennepin County, which helped train Minneapolis cops in basic first aid and other medical techniques used to stabilize people in crisis, even when they needed to be detained an controlled.

And for cases where more intervention is needed, some paramedics use a drug called ketamine. it’s a sedative, used in operating rooms for starting general anaesthesia – but it works just fine for sedating someone in a crisis, letting them breathe and recover while de-stressing, physically as well as mentally. Hennepin EMS was the first paramedic agency in the country to use Ketamin to sedate people in medical emergencied, along with about a third of all EMS agencies in the US. It’s a “very safe drug that works quicker [in his experience] than anything else”, says my source.

But – says my source – the article, the inevitable raft of subsequent lawsuits and regulatory investigations resulted, in my source’s words, in some EMS medics “…being spooked. As an agency, we were less likely to administer optimal treatments.”

It’s also a component in some “date rape” drugs – which we’ll come back to.

Hennepin EMS trained Minneapolis cops – and used Ketamine to de-escalate medical crises.

That is, until just about two years ago.

That’s when a story came out in the Star Tribune, by Andy Mannix, entitled “At urging of Minneapolis police, Hennepin EMS workers subdued dozens with a powerful sedative“.

A source formerly located in Hennepin EMS, speaking on condition of anonymity, tells me the Mannix article got pretty much every substantive fact about the use of Ketamine wrong (“He spelled Hennepin right”, my source quipped).

But the damage was…well, not done. It began. Minneapolis broke its training arrangement with Hennepin EMS, and stopped the use of ketamine.

Breathing: Fast forward to Memorial Day, 2020, and the infamous encounter outside Cup Foods in South Minneaoplis.

The New York Times put together what my source calls an excellent video on the killing – including some camera angles and audio I hadn’t encountered before. My source says the Times did an “outstanding job”.

It’s distressing, but worth a watch.

And as you do, notice – Floyd was clearly having a medical emergency. He was a big guy, so having his wrists cuffed already restricted his breathing. His claustrophobia was self-stated – but as a 6’5 guy (Floyd was 6’6) the thought of being wedged into one of those passive-aggressively cramped little police cruisers makes me a little panicky all by itself. Stress on top of medical crisis – strikes one and two.

And then officers Chauvin and Moua arrived, pulled Lloyd out of the back of the car, and commenced kneeling on his neck and back – seriously impairing his breathing.

Some wannabe social media doctors have missed the point, borrowing lessons from Heimlich Maneuver training and claiming that since Floyd could say “I can’t breathe”, he could breathe.

But, my source relates, it wouldn’t matter, if the killer symptom – acidosis, which Floyd was unable to ventilate – was leading to a cardiac arrest.

One of the officers figured it out, asking Officer Chauvin if they might roll Floyd onto his side – which Chauvin rejected, keeping Floyd under his knee until EMS arrived.

By which point Floyd was well past mere “crisis” – unresponsive, apparently acidotic, sliding toward the cardiac arrest that was reported by the EMS when they reached 36th and Park – mere blocks from Cup Foods.

Did a sloppy news story and a subsequent frenzy of litigation and regulation take a vital tool out of paramedics’ toolkits? One that might have prevented George Floyd’s death, and the orgy of misery that it led to?

This Is My Town, Sparky

Thursday evening, I decided to walk down to Snelling Avenue to check out the situation.

I saw broken glass at Lloyd’s Pharmacy, at the corner of Snelling and Minnehaha. I decided to check out the situation.

The situation nearly came to me. I saw a vibrant group of youths carrying bags of merchandise out of the Speedway station across the street, chased by the immigrant family who run the place. The other gas station up the block was in the process of being looted as well.

A small group of twenty-somethings jumped out of a car in rudimentary riot-wear, and ran past me, headed toward the Speedway. They took no interest in me – which was good for all concerned. Take that as you wish.

I beat a hasty retreat home, and rode out the rest of the evening.

The next morning, it looked like this:

Lloyd’s, which had been in this building for 102 years, as one of the last of Saint Paul’s small independent pharmacies, was gone. They’d remodeled last year, adding more lab space and some offices for a medical office – a vote of confidence in the neighborhood.

Here’s what confidence in Saint Paul gets you:

That’s 102 years worth of rubble.

Some wag commented with a sign:

Lloyd’s Pharmacy rubble pile

Lloyd’s, and the looted gas stations , were the only visibly damaged bulidings north of Thomas – although it was hard to tell if the stores were boarded up as a preventive measure…

Asian buffet on Snelling at Van Buren

Or repairing damage.

Korean and Vietnamese buisnesses on Snelling at Blair

I don’t know.

All I know is that my neighborhood, the Midway – my tough, scrappy, blighted little underdog of a neighborhood – feels gutted today.

Did I say tough and scrappy? Hell yeah. The staff from one restaiurant, immigrants all, climbed up on their roof on Thursday night, vislbly armed, entirely to deter the looters that’d gone over so miuch of the street the night before. I won’t name them here – I don’t want the neighborhood’s many Soy Boys and Karens to try to cancel them for their impudence.

During the day on Friday, University was crawling with people with dustpans and brooms, descending on University to clean up the mess.

They clearned out later in the afternoon, though, as sporadic incidents of looting and violence started to speckle the map. Recovery? Just ending the nightmare seemed a long, hard slog away, given Mayor Frey and Governor Walz’s performance.

Anway – to those of you who’ve been burning down my neighborhood, looting my neighbors’ shops, trying to wreck our lives – the neighborhood where I raised my kids, started a business or two, and have lived for what seems like an entire lifetime?

You want to talk about police brutality? Cultures of entitlement? Systemic racism?

Want to talk anger?

Let’s talk.

Want to make some changes, over what happened to George Floyd? Hey, guess what – I’ve got huge problems with excessive police power, too. Let’s get things done!

But talking isn’t’ fast or dramatic enough for you? Want to browbeat dissent into submission? Want to vent your inchoate rage on innocent third parties? Want to burn things that don’t belong to you?

Racism, inequality and brutality is oppression. But so is rioting.

And if you want to fight opporession with more oppression?

This is for you .

Go back to taking your rage out on your family, or your professors, or on yourself. Jam your adolescent entitlement someplace nature never intended things to be jammed.

Screw your “revolution” – I brought my own.

I’ll be here long after you move on to other tantrums. I will listen, if listening and discussion is what you want. But I’m not running anywhere.

This is my town, sparky.

This is our town. All the good people, black and white, Korean and H’mong, Turkish and Ethiopian, and every other flavor of humanity God put here. The ones who built this place, and the ones who’ll rebuild it after you’ve had your excellent weekend of fun.

We deserve better elected “leaders”, it’s true. But we were here first, and we’ll be here last.

The New, Old And Future Normal

One’s outrage over George Floyd’s death varies depending on one’s definition of normal.
If you’re just going about your business, acting in an ordinary and normal way, the cops shouldn’t hassle you and certainly shouldn’t kill you. So what is “normal?”
Philandro Castillo was driving and carrying a pistol while high on marijuana. The Black community considered that normal. His death was an outrage… to them.  The rest of us could understand why the officer panicked and shot him. Driving and carrying while stoned is not normal…for us.
I don’t know how hard it is to restrain a 6 ft 6 in tall, 250 lb former NBA player, who is drunk and passing counterfeit money. Does that take a polite request? Or three cops kneeling on his neck? I have no idea. But to me, getting arrested for committing a crime would be normal, and you sort it out later in court. For the Black community, passing funny money while stoned is normal and the cops should have left him alone.
The autopsy report shows George Floyd did not die of asphyxiation. He had an underlying medical condition. His arrest may have contributed to it, but the cops didn’t murder him. His death was merely incident to the arrest which makes us question whether the arrest itself was justified, which brings us back to whether his behavior was so unusual and abnormal as to justify an arrest.
This difference in perception – what is normal and acceptable behavior – is the heart of the dispute, not just for this one fellow, but for Black lives matter, antifa, achievement gap, racial reparations, affirmative action …
Joe Doakes 

And the perception gaps among so many different, parts of society are so radically different, it’s hard to see how any of it squares up, ever.   Especially since arriving at some sort of consensus is both absolutely vital…

…and utterly impossible given not only our current political, social and media state, but the opposite of what most of Minneapolis’ ruling class wants.  

I Have A Theory

My theory: America is protesting – angrily, but generally peacefully – over the death of George Floyd and all of the history in, about and around it.

America is rioting, on the other hand, because America is bored stiff after ten weeks of being cooped up inside with each other, unemployed or underemployed, being told they are “nonessential“, stricken with stage IV cabin fever, with no place to go but the online world that, hey, lookie here, told them about a huge get together!

No, not joking.

The Minneapolis police killing George Floyd was the spark.

A nation of Karens, on the other hand, had been piling up tinder for months.

DFL: You Do Own This

When the DFL wins yet another one-party election in one of their one-party towns, Minneapolis or Saint Paul, they are – or, not too long ago – were wont to chant “We own this town”. They may not be quite so loud about that anymore.

And yes, Minnesota DFL – you own Minneapolis this morning. Every one of you, from Duluth to Worthington , from La Crescent to Moorhead. Minneapolis is all of your town. Your responsibility. Every death – by cop, by gangster, by overdose in the increasingly hopeless communities, by accidents on the streets whose “calming measures” have ramped up the road rage.

Minneapolis is your city. Every scorched brick and broken window and looted business on East Lake and in Uptown belongs to you.

There’s not a single person with a soul worth worrying about that didn’t blanche at the video of George Floyd dying literally under the knee of a Minneapolis cop. The fact that the union didn’t demand the usual cooling off period after officer-involved killings indicates that they felt the same way.

But this is nothing new in Minneapolis. The cops had a reputation for brutality when I moved to Minneapolis – just down the road from the infamous Third Precinct – in 1985, when the last Republican mayor was twenty years in the rear-view mirror and the last Republican city councilman was still in living memory. The reputation carried on during the “Murderapolis” years, when Dave Sauro was a household name – kids, ask your parents about both.

And so it is today, after two generations of single party rule.

Two generations after Plymouth Avenue burned, taking whatever economic viability North Minneapolis had with it, the North Side is still a warehouse for the poor.

Because the DFL owns Minneapolis.

Crime has been on the rise – against the trend and tide in the rest of the state (which has the lowest crime in the nation for a state with a major metro area) and the nation.

Because the DFL owns Minneapolis.

The schools have the worst achievement gap in the nation. Because the DFL owns Minneapolis.

The city has been stocking up on desperate underclasses, imported to Minneapolis explictly or implicitly, drawn by tax-funded goodies, kept here to serve as votes on the hoof by a one-party city that cares about remaining a one-party city more than anything else.

Because the DFL owns Minneapolis.

And East Lake is burning – still, at 6 AM – and the National Guard and the Saint Paul cops are on the way to try to put the greased squirrel back in the shopping bag.

Because the DFL owns Minneapolis.

Every fire. Every murder. Every homeless person wandering their life away, up and down, whether on Lake Street or Eat Street.

Proud?