Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and this is it Could
Speaker 2: Happen Here. Today, We've got a special episode for you.
Speaker 2: This is a guest episode by Olive, a Minneapolis resident
Speaker 2: and movement legal worker who hosts the Outlaw podcast. So,
Speaker 2: without further ado, here's Olive.
Speaker 3: Minneapolis, Purple City Print.
Speaker 4: Put it on a map, Hi, and welcome to the
Speaker 4: first crossover episode of it Could Happen Here and Outlaw,
Speaker 4: an anti oppression podcast where we demystify how the law
Speaker 4: is used to neutralize descent in the US. I'm your host, Olive.
Speaker 4: I live in Minneapolis, and if you've read a single
Speaker 4: headline over the last two months, you probably know that
Speaker 4: we are battling the largest immigration enforcement operation in US history.
Speaker 4: Since early December, Minnesota has been occupied by three thousand
Speaker 4: agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE and Customs and
Speaker 4: Border Protection CBP, who have already abducted, imprisoned, and deported
Speaker 4: at least four thousand people. In the face of this
Speaker 4: devastating federal occupation, people are showing up every single day
Speaker 4: to defend their migrant neighbors in unimaginably beautiful ways. And
Speaker 4: on the other side of this effective resistance is expansive
Speaker 4: legal repression all of the many ways the state uses
Speaker 4: the law and its enforcement mechanisms to crush dissent. More
Speaker 4: than four hundred people have been arrested for protesting ICE
Speaker 4: or following ICE vehicles, with thirty five of them now
Speaker 4: facing federal charges under eighteen USC. One eleven, assaulting, resisting,
Speaker 4: or in peing a federal officer. I think it's really
Speaker 4: important for those of you outside of Minnesota to know
Speaker 4: how law enforcement and political prosecution are working here, because
Speaker 4: it might come to where you live to and it's
Speaker 4: different than other kinds of movement repression that I've seen.
Speaker 4: Instead of the agencies that normally police citizen protesters, like
Speaker 4: local and state cops or the FBI, it's primarily ICE
Speaker 4: and CBP who are carrying out arrests, and its wholeland
Speaker 4: Security investigations doing the investigations. It's happening this way because
Speaker 4: arrests are mostly happening when people are responding to ICE activity,
Speaker 4: and so those are the agencies who are present to
Speaker 4: make arrests. This impacts everything from how arrests go down
Speaker 4: and the conditions of incarceration, to the kinds of charges
Speaker 4: that people are catching. To understand what all this actually means,
Speaker 4: you need to hear from those who are experiencing it,
Speaker 4: the people who have been detained and prosecuted for pro
Speaker 4: testing ICE. So in this episode, you'll hear two interviews
Speaker 4: from Minneapolis rapid responders. First, you'll hear from Clem and
Speaker 4: Ray about their experience being arrested out of their car
Speaker 4: and taken into ICE attention. And second, Lucy and Isabelle
Speaker 4: will talk about catching charges and navigating cases during the surge.
Speaker 4: Stick around at the end for a special treat, a
Speaker 4: poem from isabel and a new song out of Minneapolis
Speaker 4: that responds to the surge, and just the heads up
Speaker 4: before we get into it. In this episode, you're going
Speaker 4: to hear people talk about their first hand experiences with
Speaker 4: police violence. So take care of yourself and if you
Speaker 4: like the episode, check out the other episodes of Outlaw
Speaker 4: wherever you listen to podcastsous from the North, from the South,
Speaker 4: from everywhere, Welcome to Outlaw. You're both here to talk
Speaker 4: about legal oppression of ice water in Minneapolis over the
Speaker 4: past two months. Can you both introduce yourselves briefly and
Speaker 4: your connection to the Twin Cities.
Speaker 5: I am ray is. They then pronouns I'm from here.
Speaker 5: I grew up here and have lived most of my
Speaker 5: life in the Twin Cities, and I now live in
Speaker 5: Potterhorn Park. That's in South Minneapolis.
Speaker 4: Site of high ice activity, the highest I believe.
Speaker 5: I would think that is true, and quite close to
Speaker 5: the sites of George Floyd as well as Renee Goods murders.
Speaker 1: My name is Clem. I've lived in the Cities for
Speaker 1: like five years maybe now. I grew up in the
Speaker 1: Southwest and I also live like on the border of
Speaker 1: Powder Horn in the Central neighborhood, so kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: halfway between where Renee was shot and where George Floyd
Speaker 1: was killed.
Speaker 4: So you both were arrested while you were doing ice
Speaker 4: w in your car. For people who are listening, this
Speaker 4: gets called commuting here. It can look different ways, but
Speaker 4: it often involves a hyper local signal call with a
Speaker 4: dispatcher and commuters to be able to notify and dispatch
Speaker 4: rapid responders when ice is around. Commuters track ice vehicles,
Speaker 4: oftentimes following them around, which ICE doesn't like. So my
Speaker 4: question for you two is what kinds of tactics have
Speaker 4: you witnessed state agents use to stop this kind of
Speaker 4: rapid response organizing.
Speaker 1: I feel like they have escalated and it always depends
Speaker 1: on the agent. But there's times where they'll just slow
Speaker 1: roll and drive like a normal person. There's times where
Speaker 1: they'll run red lights, they'll break check you, they'll just
Speaker 1: like go in loops around the city to try and
Speaker 1: lose you. And then depending on however they are, they'll
Speaker 1: try and pull you over and intimidate you, or they'll
Speaker 1: try and lead you to like a police station or
Speaker 1: have a share of pull you over. And they've threatened
Speaker 1: people with like stocking charges and stuff like that. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we personally have been we've had agents come up to
Speaker 1: our windows when we were commuting, the two of us,
Speaker 1: we've had we followed agents like all the way to
Speaker 1: northeast and a long time, probably like an hour, and
Speaker 1: then eventually downtown they had sheriffs pull up on us
Speaker 1: and pull us over and tell us to stop following.
Speaker 1: And then we have the other thing that I'm sure
Speaker 1: you want to talk to us about.
Speaker 5: A lot of what we've been seeing is just this
Speaker 5: recklessness like speaking through red lights and not signaling, just
Speaker 5: like a lot of like traffic violations. And then once
Speaker 5: you're pulled over, just having your windows smashed it and
Speaker 5: like them using all these intimidation tactics but like not
Speaker 5: necessarily detaining people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all of these vehicles don't necessarily look like
Speaker 1: a cop car. It's pretty rare for them to like
Speaker 1: actually turn on their lights and sirens. So when they're
Speaker 1: going through intersections as quote unquote law enforcement, it's pretty
Speaker 1: rare for someone to see them. And there are times
Speaker 1: where we almost witness like te bones of them just
Speaker 1: recklessly running a red light.
Speaker 5: Yeah, all the time.
Speaker 4: There's been a good number of car accidents also involving
Speaker 4: their cars.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and like not even caused by communing. They've
Speaker 1: just slipped on ice and ran into poles and then
Speaker 1: they tear gas observers who were heckling them because they
Speaker 1: don't know how to drive in Minnesota.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Let's turn to January seventh, twenty twenty sixth, the same
Speaker 4: day Renee Good was killed by ice. You both were
Speaker 4: out commuting. Can you tell me about how that day
Speaker 4: started for you?
Speaker 5: It was me picking up Clem, and immediately there was
Speaker 5: like a sus car that like zoomed off, and then
Speaker 5: Clem check the plates and it was Ice that we
Speaker 5: think was just waiting outside of the house to intimidate. Unclear,
Speaker 5: but I mean it certainly felt that way. Had anything
Speaker 5: happened like that to you before Clem with them targeting
Speaker 5: the house, wasn't there something that.
Speaker 1: I think at that point because they've used the tactic
Speaker 1: too of like when an observer is tailing them, they'll
Speaker 1: run your license plate and then drive you back to
Speaker 1: your house that the car is registered to as an
Speaker 1: intimidation tactic and they'll get out and take pictures of
Speaker 1: the house. But I think at that point me and
Speaker 1: my roommates that hadn't happened yet. But we had spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time at Whipple, like just observing the
Speaker 1: cars going in now the gates and trying to record
Speaker 1: all that data. And when you're there, there's just like
Speaker 1: intimidation vehicles that will just like drive up right next
Speaker 1: to your driver's side window and film you and take pictures.
Speaker 1: So it was certainly in some sort of database at
Speaker 1: that point. But what's Whipple is the federal building that
Speaker 1: is near Fort Snelling State Park, which is by the airport,
Speaker 1: and that's where ICE has been operating out of, and
Speaker 1: it's the Command headquarters for like the entire Upper Midwest,
Speaker 1: so Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakota is I think Iowa too.
Speaker 4: Okay, So the day starts off, there's an ice agent
Speaker 4: outside your house and you get in the car to
Speaker 4: start commuting. Tell me about what happens next.
Speaker 5: The abandoned car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first thing I responded to is
Speaker 1: near Little Earth, which is like a gated community but
Speaker 1: for like people who are it's like an urban reservation,
Speaker 1: is what it calls itself. And there's a call of
Speaker 1: ice at a park nearby there, and we showed up
Speaker 1: and there was just an abandoned car. And when I
Speaker 1: went and talked to someone on the street, you staying
Speaker 1: next to it, basically explained the situation of ice roll
Speaker 1: up on them, and they ran on foot and left
Speaker 1: the car, and they basically had to push the car
Speaker 1: out of the road, and then they ended up locking
Speaker 1: it because the person's documents. So I was staying with
Speaker 1: the car and calling tow truck companies that have offered
Speaker 1: free toes for people who have gone inducted. And so
Speaker 1: we were probably there for like, I don't know, more
Speaker 1: than thirty minutes, and I think as that was happening
Speaker 1: is when Renee was shot. So neither of us were
Speaker 1: like on the call or looking at shots or anything,
Speaker 1: and really went home for a break. And that's when
Speaker 1: we heard the news of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I lived really close by to there, and
Speaker 5: there was a lot of swirling information, so people saying,
Speaker 5: you know, someone was shot, and then at first people
Speaker 5: being like, come down to this area, and then you know,
Speaker 5: very shortly after people being like, it's totally cordoned off,
Speaker 5: don't come down. There's also enough observers and we need
Speaker 5: people to be out there doing this still because we
Speaker 5: can't invest all of our resources into this one thing
Speaker 5: that's happening. And probably within the hours when we got
Speaker 5: the message that was saying that there were vehicles staged
Speaker 5: in a parking lot down the street. So we drove
Speaker 5: down there and there were already observers, people in cars
Speaker 5: and on foot, probably around thirty people, and it was
Speaker 5: kind of a standoff of these vehicles, probably around five
Speaker 5: fish vehicles, and then people blowing whistles, honking horns, and
Speaker 5: so Clem and I were there in the car doing that.
Speaker 4: So you see the news that Renee was killed and
Speaker 4: for doing exactly what you were doing driving around your
Speaker 4: neighborhood to look out for your neighbors, and you get
Speaker 4: back in the car and you keep going.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that didn't stop us. I mean, if anything, it
Speaker 5: you know, made us feel like we need to be
Speaker 5: out here because they're not stopping. We're not going to
Speaker 5: stop either.
Speaker 4: So you said, you arrive at the next scene, where
Speaker 4: are you and what is ICE doing there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the Dollar Tree parking lot, which is like
Speaker 1: on Lake Street and the uptown area. And yeah, there's
Speaker 1: five vehicles presumably staging because what we've been calling out
Speaker 1: where they're just like parked planning what they're going to
Speaker 1: do next. And there weren't any agents out of car.
Speaker 1: It was just a bunch of cars sitting there that
Speaker 1: we knew were ICE.
Speaker 4: And a bunch of observers were responded.
Speaker 5: We were just like in the parking lot, they could
Speaker 5: still have driven around us, like there was room on
Speaker 5: either side of our car that they could have driven
Speaker 5: past us. And then in addition to that they could
Speaker 5: have driven around like there were just several options for
Speaker 5: them to get around it us. At that point, I
Speaker 5: think some agents got out and were like, move your vehicle,
Speaker 5: move your vehicle. And one of the cars this like
Speaker 5: huge suv ramm to the back of my car.
Speaker 4: To get it out of the way while you were
Speaker 4: in it.
Speaker 5: What we were in it, Yeah, And I think at
Speaker 5: that point clem turned to me was like, they're gonna
Speaker 5: smash out the windows and I was like yep. And
Speaker 5: so at that point I think we were both prepared
Speaker 5: for for what was going to happen. I guess though.
Speaker 5: Also I mean once they smashed the back of the car,
Speaker 5: I was thinking like, Okay, they got us out of
Speaker 5: the way, like that might be it. But then so
Speaker 5: the cars out of the way, but they all got
Speaker 5: out of their vehicles. They first maced the windows, so
Speaker 5: it's like they have a die in it. It's like
Speaker 5: a bright orange and they maced the passenger, the driver,
Speaker 5: and the windshields windows and they came around on they
Speaker 5: smashed both both of the passenger and driver windows and
Speaker 5: then sprayed bear mace through clemside into both of our faces.
Speaker 5: Right before they smashed the windows, we grabbed each other's
Speaker 5: hands and we just held hands as it was happening
Speaker 5: around us. And then I saw that bright orange mace
Speaker 5: coming from the passenger windows. So they sprayed it directly
Speaker 5: in Clem's face, and then they reached over and sprayed
Speaker 5: me and they were able to open up the doors
Speaker 5: with the windows smashed, and they dragged us out, and
Speaker 5: he punched me in the jaw, like in the lip
Speaker 5: really while they cuffed me, and they used pain compliance.
Speaker 1: It's like a.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's torture. So they've pulled my wrist up
Speaker 5: or my hand up against my arm with the cuffs on,
Speaker 5: and then pulled me or like up against the vehicle
Speaker 5: where I was detained separately from the Clem. You can
Speaker 5: talk about what happened to you at the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I could feel the door open, and then
Speaker 1: they tried to yank me out and under my seat
Speaker 1: belt and I was holding onto the seat belt and
Speaker 1: eventually they got that undone and I was just like
Speaker 1: trying to hold onto you as tired as I could
Speaker 1: until they were able to break that grasp. And then
Speaker 1: two agents pulled me out and slammed me on the
Speaker 1: floor and got on top of me and put me
Speaker 1: in cuffs and I'm still just have my eyes closed
Speaker 1: so the mace doesn't get in them. And yeah, from there,
Speaker 1: I fell a few times and kept just being dead weight,
Speaker 1: and they kept trying to take me to cars, but
Speaker 1: they didn't know which car they were supposed to go to,
Speaker 1: or they would go to a car and they didn't
Speaker 1: have the keys for it. So I was just like
Speaker 1: kept getting walked in circles, not seeing what was going on,
Speaker 1: and like hearing the confusion of all of them, until
Speaker 1: eventually I got put in the back of a car
Speaker 1: and you got put into a separate car.
Speaker 5: And the way there, I mostly just was focused on
Speaker 5: breathing through the pain on the way to Whipple, and
Speaker 5: like what was so disgusting to me? I mean, it
Speaker 5: was so fresh in our minds that Renee had just
Speaker 5: been killed, right, and I'm hearing them singing on the radio.
Speaker 5: There was one agent who is singing like I got
Speaker 5: a packet, got a packet for the sunshine or something
Speaker 5: like that, and had a lot of laughter. I remember
Speaker 5: the phrases fucking Somali's and later one of them complaining
Speaker 5: about all these fucking whistles, and I remember thinking like, oh, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 5: they're working, And wasn't too long before we arrived in
Speaker 5: the garage. It's a giant garage where they process people
Speaker 5: and there are mostly agents, vehicles, and people have been detained,
Speaker 5: like a line of people have been detained.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to point a couple of things
Speaker 4: out in what you both have said that's a little
Speaker 4: bit different than we normally see in protests related legal repression,
Speaker 4: which is one detention of people who are citizen protesters
Speaker 4: or just people arrested for protest activity by ICE, by
Speaker 4: immigration enforcement or by federal agents in general. That's usually
Speaker 4: something that is done by state or local law enforcement
Speaker 4: cops or sheriffs, and people are taken to the local
Speaker 4: jail for processing. But here what's happening is you're being
Speaker 4: taken to Whipple, which is the ICE Detention center where
Speaker 4: all non citizens detained by ICE for immigration reasons are
Speaker 4: also taken and processed. But you're also being brought there,
Speaker 4: so you're getting a window into ICE operations and you're
Speaker 4: taken into a place that people also normally don't have
Speaker 4: access to. It's a pretty high security building that they
Speaker 4: don't like people from the outside inside. But there you
Speaker 4: are in the garage, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we're on our knees and at one point
Speaker 5: I commented on how young the people looked that were
Speaker 5: holding Clem and they pulled us apart and they brought
Speaker 5: me to the opposite side of the garage, and they're
Speaker 5: still using the pain compliance. They're filming me. The whole time.
Speaker 5: There was just a bunch of agents that were filming me,
Speaker 5: and like three guys that were like on me.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 5: I said to them, I said, make it hurt, daddy,
Speaker 5: and I was being mouthy, and just this one guy
Speaker 5: in particularly seemed really freaked out by that, and they
Speaker 5: he pushed me to the ground with my face to
Speaker 5: the floor, and he said, you like the dirt, queer.
Speaker 5: And my reaction for a lot of the time that
Speaker 5: this was happening is I just was laughing and laughing,
Speaker 5: and I said, yeah, I fucking love the dirt, like
Speaker 5: I love the dirt more than anything. And I don't
Speaker 5: know how long I was like that, but they kept
Speaker 5: me on the ground and then eventually brought us in
Speaker 5: to bring us to the cells.
Speaker 1: We walked past like this central command hub with all
Speaker 1: of these people who are working in this so called
Speaker 1: metro surge operation, and then on the left for cells
Speaker 1: of people who had been detained. I think we passed
Speaker 1: at least five cells from what we you could see,
Speaker 1: and they were filled just like wall to wall of
Speaker 1: black and brown people that yeah, I had like one
Speaker 1: toilet in there, so probably at least like two or
Speaker 1: three hundred people in there.
Speaker 5: The desolation sticks with me and they led me to
Speaker 5: a separate cell, then Clem and this other person that
Speaker 5: we were detained with, and these were seemingly like the
Speaker 5: remaining cells that were available in the in the whole area,
Speaker 5: because I mean it was just full up, like they
Speaker 5: were like completely a capacity with a number of people
Speaker 5: they've abducted. Clem and I are were in there for
Speaker 5: hours with mace in our in our eyes and like
Speaker 5: no relief from that. And I remember just laying on
Speaker 5: the ground and an agent coming in pretty soon after
Speaker 5: an asshole and he was like, we've got gourmet potato
Speaker 5: and chicken and Brussels sprouts or something, and he hands
Speaker 5: me this like little plastic container with like this just
Speaker 5: this white paste or like just neat, you know, just like.
Speaker 1: Like a microwave meal of goop.
Speaker 5: Goop, just disgusting goop. But we were in there for
Speaker 5: a while before being taken back, and I think they
Speaker 5: took me back first, and I refused to say anything
Speaker 5: without a lawyer, obviously, they hand me a piece of
Speaker 5: paper and after reading me or by rights, and they said, actually,
Speaker 5: we need you to read these back to us to
Speaker 5: confirm that you speak English and understand English. And I
Speaker 5: was like, weird, but okay. So I start to read
Speaker 5: it and it's all pretty normal, and then I get
Speaker 5: to a paragraph that says something to the effect of like,
Speaker 5: no knowing these rights, I waved my rights. So I
Speaker 5: was being tricked into waving my rights, which I thought
Speaker 5: I was going crazy. I did not understand at the time,
Speaker 5: and I stopped halfway through the sentence and I read
Speaker 5: it over and over and over, trying to make sense
Speaker 5: of it. And I said to them, I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't understand what I'm being asked to read. I'm
Speaker 5: not going to keep reading this. And they were like,
Speaker 5: that's okay, we have what we need and they took
Speaker 5: it back and then I got a phone call Clempton not.
Speaker 1: We got taken into the interrogation room and it was
Speaker 1: like too Homeland Security, I don't know, like detective or whatever.
Speaker 1: But they like opened it with saying like, I know
Speaker 1: this is all like can be a lot right now,
Speaker 1: so feel free to just like let it loose. In
Speaker 1: this room and I just like kind of looked at them,
Speaker 1: like what are you talking about? Like it's it was
Speaker 1: jarring to go from dealing with a month of seeing
Speaker 1: only these people in masks and just like as this
Speaker 1: like horrible monstrosity of like a fascist, and then being
Speaker 1: inside of there and like seeing that command cetter of
Speaker 1: all those people working on the computers like making this
Speaker 1: whole thing work, and then all these detectives who like
Speaker 1: think they're detached from it and think that they're not
Speaker 1: a part of what's going down on the streets right
Speaker 1: now just because they're working inside the building. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so same thing happened. They try to ask me questions
Speaker 1: and I said I wouldn't say anything without a lawyer president,
Speaker 1: and I asked for a phone call, and they did
Speaker 1: the same thing with the rights where they were going
Speaker 1: to read them to me, and then the other detectives said, actually,
Speaker 1: we don't need to do that, and so one of
Speaker 1: them just left for a bit, and so I was
Speaker 1: just like left in the room with the like assistant
Speaker 1: detective and he just like asked me some how's your
Speaker 1: day going question? And I just kind of dead stare
Speaker 1: at him for like twenty minutes, which felt pretty good
Speaker 1: because he was very uncomp rival and kept with just
Speaker 1: like avoiding eye contact and I don't know, it's a
Speaker 1: small amount of power you can have when you're in
Speaker 1: a cage. And I got taken back to my room
Speaker 1: and tried the intercolm and asked if I could get
Speaker 1: a phone call, and they said I'll get a phone
Speaker 1: call after booking. So I was pretty worried about what
Speaker 1: was going to happen that Actually they said they had
Speaker 1: lawyer president and yeah, there's two real cool lawyers were
Speaker 1: there that we know and are friends with, and they
Speaker 1: explained that we'd be out pretty.
Speaker 5: Shortly and yeah, and then we were able to get
Speaker 5: out and go home. But I feel really haunted by
Speaker 5: the fact that we were in there for maybe a
Speaker 5: handful of hours, and of course there are all these
Speaker 5: people that are stuck there that aren't going to be
Speaker 5: able to go home the way we did. And then
Speaker 5: I took the most painful shower of my life because
Speaker 5: the water just I did the cold water thing, and
Speaker 5: my lawyer friend had warned me about it was like,
Speaker 5: you know, try not to get it in your bits,
Speaker 5: but I totally did, and it was excruciating.
Speaker 4: One of the things we talk about on the show
Speaker 4: is how to counteract the chilling effects of oppression and
Speaker 4: just the trauma of a day like this that having
Speaker 4: violent interactions with law enforcement can cause. And I really
Speaker 4: appreciate you both sharing and going back into this experience
Speaker 4: that happened now almost exactly a month ago from when
Speaker 4: we're recording today. I'm curious if you have thoughts on
Speaker 4: what you've learned and moving through experience, lessons you've learned
Speaker 4: that you'd want others to know about about how to
Speaker 4: move through something like this and keep getting out there.
Speaker 4: As I know you both have.
Speaker 1: I don't really know how to move through it, but
Speaker 1: it's Yeah, I feel like it still lives in my
Speaker 1: body and that fear has definitely changed me. But it's
Speaker 1: been nice to have friends and community and there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of like free sort of like bodywork, and
Speaker 1: I tried acupuncture for the first time, which was really nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just having people that have your back and knowing that, like,
Speaker 1: you're not alone in this, Like since we've been arrested,
Speaker 1: there's been hundreds of people in the same exact both
Speaker 1: as us, and Yeah, it feels good to know or
Speaker 1: not an outlier here unapologetically, unapologetically.
Speaker 4: Myself, Like most anti ICE protesters arrested here during the surge,
Speaker 4: Clem and Ray were released pending charges, but the legal
Speaker 4: landscape is rapidly shifting. At least thirty out of the
Speaker 4: thirty five federal cases from the past two months were
Speaker 4: charged retroactively in the past few weeks. To give you
Speaker 4: a sense of how these cases might unfold and what
Speaker 4: it's like to face these charges, you'll hear from two
Speaker 4: Minneapolis based anti ICE protesters facing criminal charges for responding
Speaker 4: to a raid at Takaia las Cuatros Muthbus that took
Speaker 4: place back on June third, twenty five. Isabel Lopez faces
Speaker 4: federal charges and Lucy faces state charges from that day.
Speaker 4: Their June cases are still open today, and Lucy also
Speaker 4: caught federal charges after responding to an ICE raid that
Speaker 4: took place during Operation Metro Surge.
Speaker 3: We should be socus everything.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Isabel and Lucy. We're going to talk today about
Speaker 4: legal oppression you both are experiencing for protesting ICE in Minneapolis.
Speaker 4: But before we even start that conversation, can you both
Speaker 4: introduce yourselves your connection to the Twin Cities and share
Speaker 4: a little bit about who you are outside of the
Speaker 4: topic of today's conversation Isabelli can start with you.
Speaker 6: Je, I'm my name is Soe Lam. I'm a community
Speaker 6: I don't know, organizer, helper, and I'm also spoken word poet.
Speaker 6: I've been writing and doing performances here in the Twin
Speaker 6: Cities for like since like twenty twenty with the whod
Speaker 6: George Ford thing? Yeah, and I've also done other organizing
Speaker 6: when it comes to the climate justice movement and also
Speaker 6: indigenous rights. I have suppotech Menzara Asis and like that's
Speaker 6: just important for me.
Speaker 4: So yeah.
Speaker 6: But I was born in Chicago, Rachaer in the Twin Cities.
Speaker 7: Hi, Lucy Uh. I've been in Minneapolis since I don't know,
Speaker 7: the early twenty tens, but I lived in Minnesota forever.
Speaker 7: I mean, I've been in and out, but I feed people.
Speaker 7: I'm allowed, bitch, I'll make noises, I make songs, make
Speaker 7: good trouble.
Speaker 4: Okay. So, you were both arrested and charged after a
Speaker 4: multi agency raid that took place back on June third,
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five at Las Quatro, Milpas, A, Mexican Tacorea
Speaker 4: in South Minneapolis. Officials still say that it was not
Speaker 4: an ICE raid and that they were executing a warrant
Speaker 4: for drug trafficking. But ICE agents were confirmed on site,
Speaker 4: alongside ten other federal agencies and local cops, and the
Speaker 4: owner of the Tacorea ended up in ICED attention. The
Speaker 4: raid and response went pretty viral. The operation was heavily militarized,
Speaker 4: and hundreds of neighbors turned out in protest. Lisa, you
Speaker 4: were charged with three counts of obstructing, impeding, or assaulting
Speaker 4: a federal officer and a fourth count of impeding a
Speaker 4: federal investigation. And Lucy you're facing state level charges from
Speaker 4: that day and federal assault charges. I'd love to hear
Speaker 4: from you both a little bit about your experiences getting
Speaker 4: arrested and catching charges. What do you want people to
Speaker 4: know about what that experience was like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I wasn't arrested until like three or four
Speaker 6: days later because it happened on June third, and then
Speaker 6: I was rested on June ninth. It felt very planned
Speaker 6: and just like a Poppet show.
Speaker 1: I remember.
Speaker 6: I think it was the day after two senators from
Speaker 6: the House here in Minnesota were shot and Georgia Ford,
Speaker 6: you know, It was a really close community friend of mine.
Speaker 6: We're both from the East Side, and she called me
Speaker 6: to do an interview. I was kind of unsure about it,
Speaker 6: but she just assured me that she just wanted to
Speaker 6: hear my story, and yeah, I didn't really think much
Speaker 6: of it, and so then I went I did the interview.
Speaker 6: I was still very taking up about what happened that day.
Speaker 6: By around like four, I think, or thick three, I
Speaker 6: was coming out and by that time in downtown, there's
Speaker 6: not a lot of things going on in Saint Paul.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a dead city by that time, and
Speaker 6: so as I was coming out, that's when four officers
Speaker 6: came from behind me and arrested me and pushed me
Speaker 6: to the ground, and my shoulder hit the concrete and
Speaker 6: I started bleeding, and they took me in a black
Speaker 6: STV and they waited there for a second, and you know,
Speaker 6: just when Georgia came out and saw everything that was
Speaker 6: happening and started recording, and you know, from there, let
Speaker 6: the community knew about what happened. And so after that,
Speaker 6: that's when I kind of started realizing what this administration
Speaker 6: is trying to do. And it felt very orchestrated. It
Speaker 6: felt very calculated, even after, especially after there's a lot
Speaker 6: of news about my arrest and adding my face to
Speaker 6: this whole drug rad and my case to it. So yeah,
Speaker 6: I know other people were arrested, but my arrest felt
Speaker 6: very like intentionally and calculated and kind of racist. This
Speaker 6: is an abuse of power, and this isn't okay, Like
Speaker 6: I don't care who you are, I don't care how
Speaker 6: you see things, Like I'm like barely not even five three,
Speaker 6: five to two, and you know, these men that were
Speaker 6: huge felt the need to tackle me. This is all
Speaker 6: allegedly right, but at the same time, I think that
Speaker 6: I want people to understand that they can make their
Speaker 6: own calls and own judgment and how like this justice
Speaker 6: system isn't that.
Speaker 4: Right now at all.
Speaker 6: It's repression.
Speaker 4: Am I also remembering correctly that I maybe had seen
Speaker 4: you post a video on Instagram about that raid, because
Speaker 4: I feel like my impression had also felt like maybe
Speaker 4: retaliation for you speaking out. Yeah, definitely your case feels
Speaker 4: important for people to know about. Especially in the past
Speaker 4: two weeks here in Minneapolis, twenty eight people have been
Speaker 4: charged with assault on a federal officer and are facing
Speaker 4: federal charges. Now there was a handful before that, but
Speaker 4: we've just seen a massive spike of people who were
Speaker 4: charged after being released pending charges. So your case does
Speaker 4: feel like this test case that's being looked to is
Speaker 4: how are they going to handle this? So what's going
Speaker 4: to happen? So I appreciate you talking about it. Would
Speaker 4: love to turn to you, Lucy and hear a little
Speaker 4: bit about what you're facing and what your experience has been.
Speaker 7: Like I think they charged me with assault and then
Speaker 7: they downgraded it to like less degree assault because it
Speaker 7: was ridiculous. Well, yeah, I would like they had like
Speaker 7: six cops tackle me, and my shoulder's never been the same.
Speaker 7: But that was that was in June. And then in
Speaker 7: another instance, I also have charges for assaulting a federal officer.
Speaker 7: Seems like they just charge everyone, you know, and like
Speaker 7: all of these legal observers are also getting docked by
Speaker 7: the age. They're trying to raise the stakes of resisting
Speaker 7: the administration as much as possible because it is a
Speaker 7: popular movement. It's like generally popular to hate ice, but
Speaker 7: they're trying to make it as expensive and as irrevocably
Speaker 7: life destroying for US citizens as it is for people
Speaker 7: who aren't US citizens.
Speaker 4: I think it's super important to highlight the ways in
Speaker 4: which these targeted political prosecutions are being used to raise
Speaker 4: the stakes of showing up to defend your community from abduction,
Speaker 4: from death, from surveillance and intimidation and fascist violence.
Speaker 6: Do you know who else where was arrested that day?
Speaker 7: There was two people arrested on June third. They were
Speaker 7: both arrested in the same interaction with a police officer.
Speaker 7: A young woman was standing in front of a police
Speaker 7: vehicle and an officer approached her like super rapidly, and
Speaker 7: then someone approached that officer, and from the video, it
Speaker 7: seems like that person ripped off a thin blue line
Speaker 7: lapel velcro from the officer, and then that officer proceeded
Speaker 7: to assault that person, and then that person was accused
Speaker 7: of assault, and then my federal charges. The government has
Speaker 7: motioned to dismiss them, but we are motioning to dismiss
Speaker 7: them with prejudice. And during that interaction, I can't really
Speaker 7: speak to what happened between me and federal officers, but
Speaker 7: a pregnant woman was assaulted by federal officers. People were tased,
Speaker 7: people were hit with batons, and that woman had like
Speaker 7: a ICE agent on top of her for like, I
Speaker 7: don't know, a half hour. People said that she miscarried,
Speaker 7: she was pregnant. Everyone was saying she was pregnant. She
Speaker 7: was dragged by one arm between the legs of the
Speaker 7: ICE officer. They said that she spray painted a car
Speaker 7: and that was the reason for the arrest. They also
Speaker 7: said that there was no proof of that either.
Speaker 4: And that incident, which was one of the first immigration
Speaker 4: operations in the surge or one of the earlier ones
Speaker 4: that went pretty viral. There was a lot of coverage.
Speaker 4: It was a huge raid, big community turn out. It
Speaker 4: was also like ICE was on the wrong block and
Speaker 4: they were in a Somali neighborhood and people were mad
Speaker 4: and people were showing up and not letting them get
Speaker 4: away with it. Also, I think there was a lot
Speaker 4: of response. My understanding was to ICE having their knee
Speaker 4: on this pregnant person's back for such a long period
Speaker 4: of time. From what I've seen in the complaint for
Speaker 4: that day. For your case, which is a public record,
Speaker 4: and I not asking you to speak to whether or
Speaker 4: not it's true or anything about it, but part of
Speaker 4: what you're being charged with is I believe de arresting
Speaker 4: that person, the pregnant person, while they were dragging her,
Speaker 4: and as a result you got assault on the federal
Speaker 4: officer charges. So just some context for people listening for
Speaker 4: the case as we're following it. Those are the public
Speaker 4: allegations that the government has made. But it was one
Speaker 4: of the earliest federal cases during the surge and one
Speaker 4: of the earlier assault cases of this kind. So interesting
Speaker 4: to hear that it looks like it's headed for a
Speaker 4: dismissal and exciting for you, but that is the case, Isabel.
Speaker 4: There's been community mobilization to support you starting back in June.
Speaker 4: Could you speak to what's been effective about that and
Speaker 4: what you've learned fighting these charges related to this political prosecution.
Speaker 6: I mean, the grand scheme of things. I think that
Speaker 6: there's just been so much repression when it comes to
Speaker 6: just you know, the Brown community. We've lost Micra, which
Speaker 6: is a really dope place on like street, right across
Speaker 6: the street from like where it happened from LEAs you know,
Speaker 6: it's like raising fun so they don't close, and you know,
Speaker 6: I think I think they starts reviewing really stuff for
Speaker 6: Latino businesses, Brown businesses, they've lost like forty six million
Speaker 6: dollars this past month. So what I'm trying to say
Speaker 6: with that is that my community is very much on
Speaker 6: the scarcity, you know, like it's almost like we're being
Speaker 6: dragged to the point. And so when my community showed
Speaker 6: up for me that day, like it just showed for
Speaker 6: me like how resilient we are and how much like
Speaker 6: it's scary, but we can't keep having other people in
Speaker 6: our communities disappear, you know, people that we can't afford.
Speaker 6: And for my case, because I'm a US citizen, I
Speaker 6: feel very like responsible and very like wanting to like
Speaker 6: being present in community because I think that's really what
Speaker 6: I can do. I can't really like do a lot
Speaker 6: because it's a fear that like if I come into
Speaker 6: certain spaces, am I being launched? You know, And they've
Speaker 6: kind of shown like hinting having an eye on me
Speaker 6: basically throughout this But like, you know, being present with
Speaker 6: community and being there when you know we're organizing and
Speaker 6: knowing you know, your rights and things like that, I
Speaker 6: think it's helped a lot of people in my community
Speaker 6: to one be a lot more careful, but to know
Speaker 6: that like what we're going up against and how it's
Speaker 6: a way of survival to keep going and like you know,
Speaker 6: to have our right speed to at least grow during
Speaker 6: these times. And we've had like observer trainings, We've had
Speaker 6: a lot of low key, smaller trainings. We're not like
Speaker 6: trying to tell too many people about it for the
Speaker 6: same reason, and for my case in particular, it's been
Speaker 6: really hard just because like a lot of people are
Speaker 6: scared and a lot of people are very intimidating to
Speaker 6: speak out and you know, advocate for what's been going
Speaker 6: on in my case, because you know, they want us
Speaker 6: to keep having this scarcity mentality and you know, being
Speaker 6: afraid of like what's to happen, what's to come. So
Speaker 6: for me, it's just been really important for me to
Speaker 6: be with community, to be with people, and like to
Speaker 6: share my story in the small ways that I can.
Speaker 6: And you know, we've been doing phone baking campaigns and
Speaker 6: also just writing letters. They have a radar on me
Speaker 6: for sure, and know like or where I'm at, where
Speaker 6: I stand, But I also know that I have a
Speaker 6: really big community behind me, and I know it's not
Speaker 6: just about me. It's about the fact that it's bigger
Speaker 6: about what could happen to somebody else in our community,
Speaker 6: and it's been hard, But I think it's it's you know,
Speaker 6: it's important for us to know that, like, you know,
Speaker 6: we can keep pushing and like be together in community
Speaker 6: despite all this, and so, yeah, it has been kind
Speaker 6: of hard, especially with the searge, it got even more messy,
Speaker 6: you know, just with a lot of people trying their
Speaker 6: buzz to keep their head above the water and helping
Speaker 6: the families that they can, because a lot of families
Speaker 6: haven't been able to leave their house.
Speaker 4: When you say we've been hosting trainings, are you referring
Speaker 4: to your support committee. You've been doing like events that
Speaker 4: are joint raising awareness about your case and also helping
Speaker 4: community get trained up. Is that what you mean?
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I think I mean it's one and the same.
Speaker 6: I feel like the people that I'm working with, they
Speaker 6: work and do a lot of grassroot things in the community,
Speaker 6: and so I know, me just showing up to those
Speaker 6: trainings and just talking about my case like that that
Speaker 6: helps a lot.
Speaker 4: So it's like that.
Speaker 6: And we've done a couple events here and there where
Speaker 6: we talk about immigration. We did one in June or no,
Speaker 6: in July. I think and like we still have said
Speaker 6: to do more things with community, to just know that,
Speaker 6: like you know, we're all we're all here in it.
Speaker 6: But it has been very intervrackering. It's been really hard
Speaker 6: just because like I don't I don't know who's watching,
Speaker 6: I don't know who's in the room, I don't know
Speaker 6: who I can trust. But I know I'm not alone.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the best part about it.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, there's so much intentional isolation of people facing charges.
Speaker 4: That's so much of how repression works is to isolate people,
Speaker 4: make them scared to go be in community and do
Speaker 4: important work. So thanks for continuing to show up. It's
Speaker 4: cool to hear you speak to both, like navigating the
Speaker 4: fear and continuing to show up where you can. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'd love to hear you both speak a little bit more.
Speaker 4: I know you just spoke about this a little bit, Isabelle.
Speaker 4: But what it's been like navigating these cases amidst the
Speaker 4: past couple months of the surge here in the Twin Cities,
Speaker 4: it's a pretty unique moment to also have these pretty
Speaker 4: high stakes cases going on, Lucy, if you want to start,
Speaker 4: it just sucks.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's lots of ways of doing things, but
Speaker 7: like I don't want to be afraid that I need
Speaker 7: to call my pre release person every time a cop
Speaker 7: talks to me, Like I don't know, Like I not
Speaker 7: that I interact with cops all the time, but I'm
Speaker 7: in Minneapolis and like i keep talking to the probation
Speaker 7: guy about this. I'm like, you know, if a cop
Speaker 7: drives by me, is that a police interaction? If I'm
Speaker 7: on the street and the fucking fedzer in in the
Speaker 7: street in front of my house, is that a police interaction?
Speaker 7: Like it just makes you so stressed out, Like Renee
Speaker 7: Good was shot in front of me, and it's like
Speaker 7: like normally I'm not the kind of person that runs
Speaker 7: away from a situation like that. I'm like, would go
Speaker 7: towards where what happened to like make sure people are okay,
Speaker 7: or like see if there's anything I can do. And
Speaker 7: in that situation, I was like what if I just
Speaker 7: am gonna go to jail like for trying to like
Speaker 7: do something. So it's just like it's just contrary to
Speaker 7: my instincts that if I see someone getting brutalized in
Speaker 7: the street or they're like they say you can go
Speaker 7: to a protest. But that's just what repression is. You know,
Speaker 7: they come into your house and they look in every
Speaker 7: single room. You know that they say that you need
Speaker 7: to go and do drug tests and that you can't
Speaker 7: have a firearm, and they wanted me to have twenty
Speaker 7: four to seven monitoring. I don't know if you have
Speaker 7: that kind of shit, but it's just like, this shit's insane,
Speaker 7: like and it's over fucking nothing. And so that's why,
Speaker 7: like I see people on the internet being like, oh,
Speaker 7: but like all those charges get dropped or whatever. I
Speaker 7: was like, then fuck you, Like you never dealt with this, Like,
Speaker 7: doesn't matter if the charges get dropped. I'm gonna try
Speaker 7: and apply to fucking Target to be a cashier and
Speaker 7: then they're gonna be like, actually, you have an active case.
Speaker 7: I tried to work at a theater and they were like,
Speaker 7: can you come explain what happened here? Doesn't matter if
Speaker 7: you end up going to jail. Yeah, going to jail sucks.
Speaker 7: But repression is like, it's the thing in and of itself.
Speaker 7: The cruelty is the point I.
Speaker 4: Want to hear from you toofl I just want to
Speaker 4: say for people listening that what Lucy's talking about are
Speaker 4: release conditions. So when the case is initiated against you,
Speaker 4: the government could argue that you should be held in
Speaker 4: detention while the case is ongoing, or they could ask
Speaker 4: for conditions of release. And those are conditions that are
Speaker 4: enforced by a pre trial probation officer, like person who
Speaker 4: might come to visit your house, or you have to
Speaker 4: call when you have cop interactions, or who facilitates drug testing,
Speaker 4: depending on what your conditions are. So just some background
Speaker 4: on that for anyone who's unfamiliar.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think Lucy kind of said it best, was
Speaker 6: like curely questioning your instincts. You're questioning like what can
Speaker 6: you do? And I've tried my best to be as
Speaker 6: creative as I can with it. But yeah, it's it's
Speaker 6: so hard because I'm finding myself having to mobilize in
Speaker 6: a different way and like show up the community. So
Speaker 6: kind of pivoted to art, Yeah, doing things when it
Speaker 6: comes to like screenprinting and just again showing up a
Speaker 6: community and just try to play face or be face,
Speaker 6: like be be real, you know, be with community. But yeah,
Speaker 6: it has been really hard because again, you never really
Speaker 6: know what you can and cannot say. Like the other day,
Speaker 6: I had a really good friend. They admitted a graphic
Speaker 6: for me talking about explaining my case and things like that.
Speaker 6: You know, I can't really post too much about my
Speaker 6: case people start tagging me in it. I tried resharing
Speaker 6: one of it. I only shared like one of reshared
Speaker 6: one of the tags, and then I tried resharing another
Speaker 6: tag that kind of explained what to do to help
Speaker 6: with my case. And like Instagram, don't let me post it.
Speaker 6: You know, these are this is like minor shit, Like
Speaker 6: this isn't like that big of a deal. But it's
Speaker 6: also just like okay, like yeah, they want to make
Speaker 6: sure that you're not being seen or heard. And I'm
Speaker 6: pretty fortunate to have like a job where like they're
Speaker 6: me to do community work and they have known me,
Speaker 6: so like I'm I feel really lucky. At the same time,
Speaker 6: it's also just been really hard because, like, you know,
Speaker 6: some people are more reluctant to have me in the
Speaker 6: room when it comes to like organizing or doing certain
Speaker 6: things because of that, because like, you know, of where
Speaker 6: my case stands, and some people have like you know,
Speaker 6: actually kind of walked away from being my friend because
Speaker 6: you know, they were also there that day on June third,
Speaker 6: and just also kind of being afraid about what would.
Speaker 5: Happen to them.
Speaker 6: But on the other side of that, you know, there's
Speaker 6: also been friends that are like I'm gonna be here.
Speaker 6: I'm down, like, don't don't like know you where you know,
Speaker 6: which has been great.
Speaker 7: Yeah, don't ditch your friends like I had, like my
Speaker 7: roommate being like I'm gonna I gotta leave, like I'm
Speaker 7: gonna dip, and people being weird to you, and it's
Speaker 7: just like, I don't know, maybe you just should just
Speaker 7: be better about your like security in general, because like
Speaker 7: sooner or later, we're all going to have charges. I
Speaker 7: don't know, maybe it's not going to be that bad,
Speaker 7: but we're all domestic terrorists in Minnesota.
Speaker 5: Now, Uh fuck.
Speaker 7: I means as per Ice, you know, making a list
Speaker 7: and I don't know, they can't tell everybody.
Speaker 6: It's just been really hard navigating. I I guess like
Speaker 6: the sense of morality that comes with it because it's
Speaker 6: like for me and I feel like you know, Lucy
Speaker 6: can relate to this, is that like you act on
Speaker 6: the things that you believe in, you act on the
Speaker 6: things that you know is worth participating. And now this
Speaker 6: administration is you know, gaslight. I don't even think gasline
Speaker 6: is a right word. I think it's just like imposing
Speaker 6: a lie of just like what is right and what
Speaker 6: is wrong and seeing everybody also just being very gas
Speaker 6: lit and having you know, the news having a certain
Speaker 6: narrative of like what is right, what is wrong, what
Speaker 6: has been said, what has not been said, what really happened,
Speaker 6: what didn't happen, and also just arresting independent journalist. I
Speaker 6: think it just goes to show how much constitution has
Speaker 6: not been constituted, Like the human rights that we believed
Speaker 6: and we thought that we have are no more. So
Speaker 6: it's like what gos and what doesn't go? You know?
Speaker 6: And I think that for me, the only real hope
Speaker 6: I have is like community and like creativity, because it's
Speaker 6: like people have shown up for me, because I've been
Speaker 6: showing up since like twenty twenty. So it's like, how
Speaker 6: can we inspire a sense of like a sense of
Speaker 6: hope and spirit to keep going? How can we keep
Speaker 6: have people know that there is there is hope at
Speaker 6: the end, that you know that there can be another
Speaker 6: side that right now what we're seeing is just another
Speaker 6: world unfolding and the only way that we can really
Speaker 6: understand that new world is when we understand the truth
Speaker 6: that we've been walking on. And so my friends have
Speaker 6: been so good to me, and some of them have
Speaker 6: been you know, they've made like graphics and really cool
Speaker 6: like it's it's my face on it, just a way
Speaker 6: to like, you know, welcome me home and things like that,
Speaker 6: and creating different images of like what this new world
Speaker 6: can be. And you know, one thing that I did
Speaker 6: with some of the NDI and collective, we made this
Speaker 6: really dope graphic that says Motherland on it and it's
Speaker 6: all the Americas having roots from the global South, you know,
Speaker 6: and being supple thick like has been really like so
Speaker 6: key for me to know that, like I have every
Speaker 6: right to be here. That like a lot of the
Speaker 6: legitimacy that is constituted quote unquote for me, that doesn't
Speaker 6: come from for me, that's not my truth of like
Speaker 6: why I move and why I believe to do is
Speaker 6: write to me, I do what is right because of
Speaker 6: the history that I come from, because of like you know,
Speaker 6: who my dad is, and like the people that I
Speaker 6: know that I come from. You know, I'm not like
Speaker 6: native to the northern Plains. But I do have friends
Speaker 6: that are, and I do respect and love them so much.
Speaker 6: Where I want to see the traditions be fully and thrived.
Speaker 6: And I know that my power and my liberty is
Speaker 6: tied with theirs. And I know that we like have
Speaker 6: every right to be here from the people that are
Speaker 6: from the Global South as well, because of the fact
Speaker 6: that we haven't been able to like fully thrive in
Speaker 6: the motherland. We haven't been fully thrived in all the Americas.
Speaker 6: And you know, a lot of people don't want to immigrate.
Speaker 6: A lot of people don't want to migrate, they don't
Speaker 6: want to leave their motherland. But I know that we
Speaker 6: have built homes here, we have built communities here, and
Speaker 6: I think that for me, that that's the other side
Speaker 6: of it, is that we can we can thrive, and
Speaker 6: that we can be in this place together, that we
Speaker 6: have every right to like bad in this constant last
Speaker 6: night together. We are America.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I also just want to ask what support
Speaker 4: asks you have for listeners, either for your defense campaigns
Speaker 4: or for anti ice organizing more broadly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for me, we're having people call in to Daniel
Speaker 6: Rose to draw the charges and to send in letters
Speaker 6: that's our community ask. And also to donate to the
Speaker 6: go funder. Yeah, I'm finding myself needing more support when
Speaker 6: it comes to just getting people on the side and
Speaker 6: just yeah, getting people also sustained through the movement as
Speaker 6: well through that. So yeah, donate to my gounfund me.
Speaker 6: And also if they can, it's in an letter call
Speaker 6: in and yeah.
Speaker 7: I'll just say, yeah, talk to everyone. You can talk
Speaker 7: to your neighbors, talk to your relatives. It should be
Speaker 7: impossible for them to convict anything in Minnesota because no
Speaker 7: jury is sympathetic with these people. And the only way
Speaker 7: that happens is if there's a broad understanding of the
Speaker 7: violence that is being perpetuated in our communities and a
Speaker 7: broad support of those that are resisting it.
Speaker 4: Well, I know you both have shared the importance of
Speaker 4: creating of work for you, Isabelle, do you have a
Speaker 4: poem you'd like to read or anything you want to share?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can read a poem real quick, since I
Speaker 6: can't really speak much about what happened that day, I
Speaker 6: wrote this. When I walked outside, I saw I staring
Speaker 6: back at me, cold presence stirring an earthquake in my body.
Speaker 1: Do I freeze?
Speaker 6: Or do I run? I asked myself. Do my parents
Speaker 6: have the time to ask themselves this when they left
Speaker 6: the motherland? If I run, I might slip into its
Speaker 6: breue arms and be caught by its cages. If I freeze,
Speaker 6: will it drown out all the warmth of my family?
Speaker 6: Let inside of me? Will the couffing freeze the southern
Speaker 6: sun and my blood veins? Just to be as numb
Speaker 6: as them? The cold thrives in control. The order of
Speaker 6: ignorance can thrive in an unconscious and vulnerable pride. I never
Speaker 6: thought their hands could be as brown as mine, as
Speaker 6: young as mine, as desperate for safety that it folds
Speaker 6: into another version of insanity. The wrong ice is melting
Speaker 6: and the warmth of brown and black bodies are freezing.
Speaker 6: Can I walk back into the pattern of survival? My
Speaker 6: lineage taught me to flourish instead of freezing in the
Speaker 6: numbing of society.
Speaker 4: Wow, thank you? Does that have a name? Yeah?
Speaker 6: It's ice or ice freeze something like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe I lamb unapologetically, unapologetically myself.
Speaker 4: We recorded this episode in the first half of February
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty six. It's March now, So here's a
Speaker 4: couple updates since recording, eight of the federal defendants have
Speaker 4: had their charges dismissed and many have been offered misdemeanor deals.
Speaker 4: We also now know that there are over one hundred
Speaker 4: protesters facing state level charges, mostly misdemeanors. The aftermath of
Speaker 4: repression in the form of criminal cases from this time
Speaker 4: will likely continue for years, if not decades to come.
Speaker 4: And another update, thousands of agents have left the Twin Cities.
Speaker 4: I get to see my neighbors out of their houses
Speaker 4: a little more often now, but daily life is still
Speaker 4: colored by ongoing abductions, disappeared family members, and shock waves
Speaker 4: of state violence that have hit our migrant neighbors. I
Speaker 4: know I said it in the beginning, but just to
Speaker 4: say it to close. As much as there is devastating
Speaker 4: violence and terror happening here, there is incredibly magnificent resistance
Speaker 4: and community connection happening. Every single day. Neighbors are showing
Speaker 4: up and stopping abductions, They're watching people get killed in
Speaker 4: the street for doing it, and they're showing up the
Speaker 4: next day to continue. There's a kind of fearlessness and
Speaker 4: a kind of love that is in this community that
Speaker 4: I've never seen anywhere else. So as much as things
Speaker 4: are horrible, things are also beautiful. And I want you
Speaker 4: to know that. The theme music you heard in this
Speaker 4: episode was the song Star by twofa one a Dakota
Speaker 4: and bariqua artist based out of Minneapolis. Check out their other.
Speaker 1: Music from the South Everywhere.
Speaker 4: If you liked this episode, check out the show Outlaw
Speaker 4: wherever you get your podcasts, throw us a rate review,
Speaker 4: and follow Outlaw pod on Instagram and Blue Sky. To
Speaker 4: close the episode, here's a song written in Minneapolis during
Speaker 4: the surge. I think it captures some feeling of being here.
Speaker 5: Just as.
Speaker 8: Never broad someone back from the dead, just as never
Speaker 8: proud someone back from the dead, just as never broad
Speaker 8: someone back from the dead, just as never bride someone.
Speaker 5: Back from the dad.
Speaker 3: Just that.
Speaker 8: Never brod someone back from the dead.
Speaker 4: Way are you telling me wait like someone will be saved?
Speaker 1: Are you telling me?
Speaker 3: Are you telling me.
Speaker 6: That justice were somehow saved?
Speaker 7: Never gonna get back their days?
Speaker 4: It could happen.
Speaker 9: Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
Speaker 9: podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
Speaker 9: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 9: or Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find
Speaker 9: sources where it could happen here listen directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 9: Thanks for listening.