Unexpectedly, building an entire movement around a vicious criminal who robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint, and a racist hate group responsible for multiple violent riots in support of criminals… leads to more crime.

Come for the revolution, stay for the gangland shootings in George Floyd Square.

Prayer gatherings canceled. Rallies canceled. Visitors arriving with flowers in hand, only to retreat to their cars when greeted by the sound of gunshots. Neighbors ducking for cover behind our houses, children in tow.

The gunshots are the rallies and the prayer gatherings. Black Lives Matter is a movement built on supporting criminals. How can they complain when real criminals show up to the party?

March 6, 5:45 p.m.: A 30-year-old volunteer is killed in the zone by gunshot. People in the zone are seen picking up shell casings and throwing them into city garbage, loading the gunshot victim into a car to drive him to hospital.

8:20 p.m.: Neighbors call 911 again as multiple shots ring out. Children listen.

March 7: Six garages along our alley are hit by gunfire, one with its owner inside. A car crashes through a fence into a family’s backyard. An 18-month-old had been playing by the fence minutes earlier.

5 p.m.: Thirty shots hit cars and the windows and siding of at least one house, narrowly missing residents watching TV.

How’s the police defunding working out? The Minneapolis City Council was all for it, but minority residents came out against it. This is a little log of why.

But it’s nice to have everyone awkwardly rediscovering that crime exists. And it’s why we have police.

And that the ‘abolitionist’ restorative justice garbage is laughably useless.

Multiple shots fired, a man is photographed perched atop Cup Foods with an assault rifle on a tripod. Children cry. Zone medics are offered to visit neighbors and provide mental health support to those being traumatized.

I’m sure that will fix that. Send more social workers.

9:50 p.m.: Thirty shots ring out. A person complains to a neighbor that the neighbor has parked too close to the person’s car. A zone occupant, with no connection to the other parties, fires multiple shots into the neighbor’s car and house. The neighbor, a military veteran, is in the driver’s seat and recognizes an assault rifle with a 30-round clip. The shooter walks back into the zone. Four police squads caravan through and meet the neighbor nearby.

10:16 p.m.: A second 911 call provides a description of the shooter, who remains in the area appearing to wait for some target. Police have just received a call about a teen and adult shot two miles away. Resources exhausted, the police do not respond to our call. The shooter in the zone walks away.

10:45 p.m.: Third 911 call of the night. As some neighbors are picking up shell casings, people near the fist statue in the zone repeatedly yell, “Get the f out of here.” Then a gun is fired from near the fist statue. Four men come out of the zone to tell the neighbors they “weren’t shooting at you.”
The neighbors ask if they are “zone security” and are told no — but one man reports he has his gun. Neighbors ask how to protect themselves and are told the best thing to do is fill the street corners with garbage containers to block off our streets.

The non-carceral utopia is here. Block off your streets, get guns, and pray. Or move.

But we are also watching neighbors move: 20% in the last year, another 20% preparing.

Rest in power. Say his name. Then duck the bullets.