<story><title>US customs and border protection is flying a surveillance drone over Minneapolis</title><url>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dzbe3/customs-and-border-protection-predator-drone-minneapolis-george-floyd</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>remarkEon</author><text>Another fellow Minnesotan here and former Minneapolis resident (used to live a mile away from Hiawatha and Lake back in the day).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Characterizing what is happening as an edge case is a huge mistake. People do not spontaneously start protesting with so much anger if it hasn&amp;#x27;t built up over so long.&lt;p&gt;These protests are at least partly drummed up by out of state agitators, and are implicitly condoned by a feckless and weak state and local government that would rather give ground (literally) than enforce the rule of law. Saying &amp;quot;enough is enough&amp;quot; means going to the polls, not burning down all of the businesses in your neighborhood that were already on the verge of collapse thanks to the pandemic. That people are making up excuses for this behavior is disturbing to me, and signals that America is farther along the path of Imperial collapse than I previously thought. What end do you think we end up with here by condoning this? Agitators taking over City Hall? Disbanding the police department?&lt;p&gt;Please don&amp;#x27;t excuse burning down entire neighborhoods. Thanks.</text></item><item><author>pm90</author><text>Fellow HN user, I welcome you with warmth so please don&amp;#x27;t take what I say offensively, but as a different perspective.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; What happened is awful. It doesn&amp;#x27;t reflect how genuinely kind people in Minnesota are and how we, collectively feel about what happened and the movement at large. There will always be edge-cases as there is with any situation in any context. But for everyone that I&amp;#x27;ve known, for everyone I&amp;#x27;ve met and encountered with in Minnesota, when I look back at my time spent on either coast I always have found the people in Minnesota to be great.&lt;p&gt;Characterizing what is happening  as an edge case is a huge mistake. People do not spontaneously start protesting with so much anger if it hasn&amp;#x27;t built up over so long. The police do not act with such impunity against citizens &amp;quot;just in this off case&amp;quot;. It needs to be systemic for the reactions to be this strong.&lt;p&gt;If you haven&amp;#x27;t experienced this personally, that&amp;#x27;s great! I will not question your experiences. But please understand that others have not had the same experience. They&amp;#x27;ve had such a bad experience that they&amp;#x27;re willing to go out in the streets during a pandemic to say &amp;quot;enough is enough&amp;quot;. The police have had enough experience to be well prepared with crowd control tools and to use them immediately on peaceful protestors, when they could have de-escalated. People don&amp;#x27;t burn down a building they consider a symbol of tyranny just because of a single incident; their experience so far has ingrained into them a deep hatred for the police who are meant to protect and serve them.&lt;p&gt;As others in this thread have said, please try to listen to other perspectives. People experience different realities, and all of them can coexist without having to disprove the other.</text></item><item><author>joshmn</author><text>Native Minnesotan here — living in Minneapolis — that has lived on both coasts:&lt;p&gt;With all that&amp;#x27;s happening the last few days, please don&amp;#x27;t generally associate Minnesotans with the violent riots that have captured the attention of everyone. The peacefulness of the protests and gatherings has been overshadowed by the violence. There are countless examples of Minnesotans standing up to those who choose to loot and destroy the innocent. Those images are being overlooked.&lt;p&gt;What happened is awful. These violent riots, and the violent images aren&amp;#x27;t reflective of Minnesotans at large. The violence doesn&amp;#x27;t reflect how genuinely upset people in Minnesota feel about what happened and greater the movement at large. There will always be edge-cases as there is with any situation in any context. But for everyone that I&amp;#x27;ve known, for everyone I&amp;#x27;ve met and encountered with in Minnesota, when I look back at my time spent on either coast I always have found the people in Minnesota to be most great.&lt;p&gt;I have friends and colleagues asking me &amp;quot;what&amp;#x27;s going on with everyone in Minnesota?&amp;quot; and I have to explain to them that these images aren&amp;#x27;t representative of the place I call home and my neighbors I call my friends.&lt;p&gt;There are businesses that didn&amp;#x27;t do anything wrong which have have been effectively `rm -rf` because of a small group of bad actors. The Target on Lake Street didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. Banadir Pharmacy didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. Seward Pharmacy didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The pawn shop didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The WIC office didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The liquor stores didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. MoneyGram didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The tobacco store didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. Disrupting those businesses and the livelihoods of their employees and owners doesn&amp;#x27;t prove a point.&lt;p&gt;But burning down the precinct? Yeah, I can get behind that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JumpCrisscross</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;These protests are at least partly drummed up by out of state agitators&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is a scary response. We saw, today, a black CNN reporter arrested by state police on live television. If that’s how an educated, gently-speaking, Constitutionally-protected member of the press is treated, there is a root issue festering. Blaming it on agitators deflects from introspection.&lt;p&gt;A big part of the problem is Minneapolis’s moderates have turned a blind eye to the problems in their police force for years. That civic neglect has consequences. Those consequences are coming home to roost.</text></comment>
<story><title>US customs and border protection is flying a surveillance drone over Minneapolis</title><url>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dzbe3/customs-and-border-protection-predator-drone-minneapolis-george-floyd</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>remarkEon</author><text>Another fellow Minnesotan here and former Minneapolis resident (used to live a mile away from Hiawatha and Lake back in the day).&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;Characterizing what is happening as an edge case is a huge mistake. People do not spontaneously start protesting with so much anger if it hasn&amp;#x27;t built up over so long.&lt;p&gt;These protests are at least partly drummed up by out of state agitators, and are implicitly condoned by a feckless and weak state and local government that would rather give ground (literally) than enforce the rule of law. Saying &amp;quot;enough is enough&amp;quot; means going to the polls, not burning down all of the businesses in your neighborhood that were already on the verge of collapse thanks to the pandemic. That people are making up excuses for this behavior is disturbing to me, and signals that America is farther along the path of Imperial collapse than I previously thought. What end do you think we end up with here by condoning this? Agitators taking over City Hall? Disbanding the police department?&lt;p&gt;Please don&amp;#x27;t excuse burning down entire neighborhoods. Thanks.</text></item><item><author>pm90</author><text>Fellow HN user, I welcome you with warmth so please don&amp;#x27;t take what I say offensively, but as a different perspective.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; What happened is awful. It doesn&amp;#x27;t reflect how genuinely kind people in Minnesota are and how we, collectively feel about what happened and the movement at large. There will always be edge-cases as there is with any situation in any context. But for everyone that I&amp;#x27;ve known, for everyone I&amp;#x27;ve met and encountered with in Minnesota, when I look back at my time spent on either coast I always have found the people in Minnesota to be great.&lt;p&gt;Characterizing what is happening  as an edge case is a huge mistake. People do not spontaneously start protesting with so much anger if it hasn&amp;#x27;t built up over so long. The police do not act with such impunity against citizens &amp;quot;just in this off case&amp;quot;. It needs to be systemic for the reactions to be this strong.&lt;p&gt;If you haven&amp;#x27;t experienced this personally, that&amp;#x27;s great! I will not question your experiences. But please understand that others have not had the same experience. They&amp;#x27;ve had such a bad experience that they&amp;#x27;re willing to go out in the streets during a pandemic to say &amp;quot;enough is enough&amp;quot;. The police have had enough experience to be well prepared with crowd control tools and to use them immediately on peaceful protestors, when they could have de-escalated. People don&amp;#x27;t burn down a building they consider a symbol of tyranny just because of a single incident; their experience so far has ingrained into them a deep hatred for the police who are meant to protect and serve them.&lt;p&gt;As others in this thread have said, please try to listen to other perspectives. People experience different realities, and all of them can coexist without having to disprove the other.</text></item><item><author>joshmn</author><text>Native Minnesotan here — living in Minneapolis — that has lived on both coasts:&lt;p&gt;With all that&amp;#x27;s happening the last few days, please don&amp;#x27;t generally associate Minnesotans with the violent riots that have captured the attention of everyone. The peacefulness of the protests and gatherings has been overshadowed by the violence. There are countless examples of Minnesotans standing up to those who choose to loot and destroy the innocent. Those images are being overlooked.&lt;p&gt;What happened is awful. These violent riots, and the violent images aren&amp;#x27;t reflective of Minnesotans at large. The violence doesn&amp;#x27;t reflect how genuinely upset people in Minnesota feel about what happened and greater the movement at large. There will always be edge-cases as there is with any situation in any context. But for everyone that I&amp;#x27;ve known, for everyone I&amp;#x27;ve met and encountered with in Minnesota, when I look back at my time spent on either coast I always have found the people in Minnesota to be most great.&lt;p&gt;I have friends and colleagues asking me &amp;quot;what&amp;#x27;s going on with everyone in Minnesota?&amp;quot; and I have to explain to them that these images aren&amp;#x27;t representative of the place I call home and my neighbors I call my friends.&lt;p&gt;There are businesses that didn&amp;#x27;t do anything wrong which have have been effectively `rm -rf` because of a small group of bad actors. The Target on Lake Street didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. Banadir Pharmacy didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. Seward Pharmacy didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The pawn shop didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The WIC office didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The liquor stores didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. MoneyGram didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. The tobacco store didn&amp;#x27;t do anything. Disrupting those businesses and the livelihoods of their employees and owners doesn&amp;#x27;t prove a point.&lt;p&gt;But burning down the precinct? Yeah, I can get behind that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>komali2</author><text>Why did the cops shoot tear gas at peaceful protestors yesterday, when they didn&amp;#x27;t two weeks ago when armed militia stormed the statehouse?&lt;p&gt;The cops brought this on themselves. There&amp;#x27;s nobody to blame here but them.</text></comment>