nothing says 'peaceful removal' like riot gear

Oh hi, it's snipy! You might know me from things like announcing Wonkette's official policy on Syrian civil war and helming your traditional viewing of the Sarah Palin Turkey Day Massacre. What you don't know about me is that I live in North Minneapolis, roughly six blocks from where Jamar Clark was shot and where Black Lives Matters protesters set up an occupation of the local police precinct. Yes, the one where a bunch of white supremacists shot five black protesters because everything is awful.

I write to you this fine winter day to tell you that at about 4 AM, the police tore the encampment down. We heard it happening in the dim morning hours, and weren't entirely sure what it was. Then we heard the news vultures helicopters circling, and we knew for sure it had happened.

Now that right there is a weird thing, because our illustrious Mayor Betsy Hodges -- who ran on a racial equity platform, just FYI -- had gone on the radio only about 10 hours before and mayorsplained that there was no date set for eviction because they all hoped protesters would decide to leave on their own. Side note: In Minnesota right now, "decide to leave on their own" is actually code for "we really hope it gets too cold for these annoying activists to stay outside any longer but the goddamn weather is not cooperating." Another note: In this case, "no date set for eviction" means "we're going to move you out in just a few hours in the middle of the night haha I just lied my face off about this on public radio."

Now, to be fair, the mayor did explain last night that they had very nicely pretty please with a ribbon on top told the protesters that they would be welcome to protest on some city-owned land nearby rather than pestering the police officers. You will note that this is pretty much like telling people who were doing lunch counter sit-ins in the 1960s that they were totally welcome to do so if they would just go to another restaurant where they wouldn't inconvenience any white people.

To be even more super fair, I should mention that they did give people a whopping 10 minutes to clear things out before the police basically bulldozed the camp, so there's that little bit of Minnesota Nice.

The ostensible reasons for tearing the encampment down were (1) it was hurting air quality on the North Side because of all the wood fires, and (2) it was blocking easy access to the cop shop.

Yeah, about that. Our air quality has been godawful for years with nary a peep from our fair city on how to stop businesses from dumping particulate matter all over the part of the city where the poor brown people live. And if the goal was to make sure people could access their local precinct ...

... the barricades and chain link fence are gonna make that kinda hard.

In conclusion, everything is terrible in my neighborhood and everywhere else, the end.

[MPR / StarTribune / MPCA / Fox9]