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Portlanders do not need to be told why the killings in Minneapolis matter here. On two separate occasions over the last few weeks, anonymous federal agents shot and killed U.S. citizens objecting to their immigration raids. Those are events that threaten all Americans’ constitutional rights.
“Horrific—another senseless execution of a citizen by Trump’s lawless federal agents,” U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) wrote on social media today in the hours after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers killed a 37-year-old man in Minneapolis streets. “Federal agents are terrorizing communities in Minnesota, Oregon, and across the country. Kristi Noem must go. Not one more penny for ICE.”
The killings cut especially deep in Portland because just a month ago, President Donald Trump had this city in his crosshairs. He retreated only after a federal judge’s ruling stopped the deployment of National Guard troops here to quell the protests of a few dozen people.
In many ways, Portland still hasn’t recovered from the unrest and riots that took place after a police officer murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis. Back then, Trump stoked violence in Portland by deploying agents to unleash chemicals and snatch protesters from the streets in unmarked vans. To see the thousands of outraged people thronging the Minnesota streets is like looking in a mirror.
The mission of WW is to empower Portlanders through local stories told by local reporters. It is in that spirit that we direct your attention to the work being done by Minneapolis journalists.
The most comprehensive coverage today of the killing of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse born in Illinois, comes from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which is providing live updates. Other local outlets covering the crisis included the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the student journalists at The Minnesota Daily.
For a more personal look at how people in the Twin Cities feel, take a look at this story from Racket, the Minneapolis alt-weekly. The paper asked dozens of people who are standing against ICE in single-digit temperatures why they felt compelled to do so.
“Every day more people are out there doing what we can,” writes one contributor. “We do it while armed thugs brandish their weapons on our streets, abduct and abuse innocent people, mock us, gas us, and create an atmosphere of terror. We do it while the government incessantly publishes brazen lies about what is taking place here. We do it because it is who we are. We will always do it.
“That’s why we will win.”
