@wdlindsy when we bring the perpetrators of this to trial, the name of the Maine operation will be evidence.

Compass needles are swinging fast right now, but one thing I want us to keep in our sights is: when we finally get the goon squads off our streets, it will be a great victory, but we still need our neighbors back. Shut down the camps; bring them all home.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #KEXP's #Early

They Might Be Giants:
🎵 Eyeball

#TheyMightBeGiants

https://open.spotify.com/track/1XyyRgmRauC7SmMoD8JYDr

@gleick

I can't prove it but I think they killed him because he made them feel small.

You know, by really doing all of those things we like to say "makes a man a real man"

Stepping up to protect smaller people from the bullies. With calm with honor. Like at his job. Never losing his cool while doing it.

It was an inverted mirror for these little wannabes in all of their mismatched gear looking like boys playing "army" ...

His presence set them off.

@futurebird They're brutalizing brown targets everywhere, but they've reserved the worst of the violence against white observers for Minneapolis, because it's the city that they and their base hate the most by name, and also where people look the most like "activists", so violence there suits their content creation mill the best

@futurebird It's not that ICE is at protests, it's that observers are at ICE kidnappings/attempts. We aren't exaggerating when we call this an occupation. The kidnap squads are roaming all over the state, and densest in Minneapolis. This particular one was apparently actually Border Patrol, but they're all getting called ICE as shorthand.

‼️ Twin Cities residents‼️

Citywide vigil, on every block

7:00pm tonight

There is no central gathering location, to prevent further ICE / DHS targeting. Vigil location is wherever you are.

Please contact your nearby neighbors now and spread the word. We want the whole city showing up. This has to end.

#MInneapolis #msp #MinneapolisProtests

Myself, I go unarmed. But please note that even the people who go armed are not shooting. Before you talk big about guns, ask yourself, why is that?

And another thing: Alex Pretti was armed. He had brought a legal gun to his observer duties. If he had assessed that the situation he was intervening in was one that could be improved by him pulling his gun, he would have pulled his gun. He did not. It's extremely likely that other witnesses to the scene were also armed; after all, many people are. After he was murdered, they also assessed that the situation would not be improved by them pulling out their guns.

@miss_rodent @quietmarc You think those options never occurred to US? You think WE need some keyboard warrior to remind us of some options that may not be "appropriate or useful in every circumstance"? The options WE are going with HERE are the options that WE are choosing based on OUR firsthand experience HERE of both 2020 and right now. Fuck off with your empty-headed Boogaloo fantasies.

Fucking keyboard radicals telling us in MN to burn buildings. Tell you what, my "riots work" friends: go burn your own buildings, report back to us on what will surely be the highly satisfactory outcomes, and then maybe we'll consider following your proven effective example.

@miss_rodent @quietmarc Don't you fucking dare lecture people in MN to burn buildings. We know all about what gets accomplished by burning fucking buildings. If burning buildings was going to save us, people would be burning fucking buildings. Fuck off.

@inthehands and when we got back to our block in the Midway, we saw others heading out to a 5pm vigil at a neighborhood church. There were definitely multiple other St. Paul events, plus many people who chose to stay on patrol to make sure their neighborhoods weren't left unguarded. Just absolutely massive participation

@inthehands By my rough guess, 200 people fit in a crowded light rail car, so ~600 in a 3-car train. When the trains started running again at the end of the march, we caught the third one out, all packed. So that's ~1800 just in the first three Green Line trains out, which was only a tiny fraction of the crowd. I would easily believe 50,000, and I'd guess likely quite a bit more.

@fkamiah17 please vet claims before posting. I was just there, singing with a clergymember friend until she was arrested. There is a large demonstration, but airport is not shut down

@inthehands Adding also that, if people from out of state want to donate close to home in addition to getting organized, good priorities are the immigrant rights orgs running local observer trainings and hotlines, and geographically specific legal aid orgs. Those are forming the key back end enabling much of the participatory community work, and because their work requires actual staffing, coping with the surge in workload is both expensive and crucial.

RE: https://follow.ethanmarcotte.com/@beep/115939302721314540

When people from other parts of the US ask what they can do to help Minneapolis, this is the first thing I always tell them: Get organized NOW. Form your community networks NOW. You have no idea how important it’s going to be. You have no idea how much a head start will help.

@artemis for every story you hear about them kidnapping and brutalizing people, there are a hundred that you might not hear about how observers kept guard as two or three vehicles spent an hour idling in a parking lot or circling a block, then finally gave up and fucked off.

@artemis the solidarity is much appreciated, and also: I just want to highlight that we are doing this in MN and, overwhelmingly, NOT dying, because a) we are protecting each other by sharing the risk, and b) although these goon are incredibly dangerous, they are also, on the whole, a bunch of worthless putzes who flee at the sound of a whistle, and would rather sit warm behind their tinted windows (presumably dicking around on their phones) than actually get out of their cars and do shit

"ICE, however, has not paid any third-party providers for medical care for detainees since October 3, 2025. Last week, ICE posted a notice on an obscure government website announcing it will not begin processing such claims until at least April 30, 2026. Until then, medical providers are instructed 'to hold all claims submissions.'"

https://popular.info/p/ice-has-stopped-paying-for-detainee