If this account is correct, it looks like Minneapolis had already gone a long way down the liberal, progressive, socialist road to hell that's being followed in California and many other places.
All of the adults on the city council have retired or been voted out, and the council is now composed of earnest young progressives like our boy mayor Jacob Frey. And what does every young progressive like Jacob fear the most? Being called a racist. We also have a few AOC types who want to seize the Lake of the Isles mansions for the (well-connected) people.
. . .
Retail stores are soon found to be easy targets. Chain stores are the easiest. CVS and Walgreens and Chipotle will absolutely fire any employee who looks at a petty criminal in a mean way. The store manager is held responsible for shrinkage –loss due to theft– but if the manager even attempts to stop theft, he or she will be fired.
. . .
Now add in the great progressive paranoia: I cannot stand to be called a racist.
So rather than risk that city and county officials decided to stop enforcing laws against retail theft. Remember that video from a San Francisco store of thieves cleaning out all the makeup in a drugstore in broad daylight? It happens here in Minneapolis also.
Here the thieves will grab a box of trash bags off the shelf, pull out a couple, and fill it with easily fenced stuff like Tide detergent, diapers, and small electronics. If there are cigarettes, they’ll jump over the counter and grab them, along with Similac baby food (that’s already behind the counter due to high theft). Then they will walk out, and if you stand in their way, you may get shoved down. Certainly all of the “Sir, please, stop” which is the corporate recommended solution, will not slow them down.
The really great thing is, a merchant can call the police while burning a DVD of the perp’s faces, and the cops probably will not show up. If someone is injured by the bad guys, probably someone will come and hand the manager a card with a case number, but that is all that will happen. I have seen this many times in many stores.
When this virus thing happened, the city actually announced that they would not prosecute retail theft and transit fare jumping, among other things.
There's more at the link. It makes depressing reading, but explains a lot.
Aaron Clarey (a.k.a. Captain Capitalism), who lives in or near Minneapolis, is even more scathing.
Minneapolis (and Minnesota in general) is a failed city/state, full of leftists, parasites, communists, and race pimps, all pampered and enabled by self-loathing, pussy white people who want to bring about a socialist utopia. I hate the citizens of Minneapolis. I hate the people of Minnesota and I am merely biding my time until I can move. This is merely poetic justice watching a potpourri of leftists (SJW's, antifa, aggrieved black members of the community, spoiled rich kids from the suburbs-turned-virtue-signaling-activists, and simple thieves/looters) destroy a neighborhood/city that has voted-for and doted on leftist political causes EVERY SINGLE TIME. You COULD NOT FIND A MORE PRO-MINORITY, PRO-SOCIALISM, PRO-SJW block of voters than Minneapolitans... who are now watching their city get destroyed by the same leftists they so enthusiastically supported and sucked the ***** of. Meanwhile, the most cowardly mayor and governor in all of history stand by and do nothing, letting their most loyal constituents and neighborhoods burn. It truly is an example of "Enjoy the Decline" and "Enjoy the Show." You get the government you deserve.
Regardless, I am supremely confident Minneapolitans and Minnesotans in general will learn nothing. They will go back to voting for socialism, treating minorities as incompetent teenagers instead of adults, and nothing will change. And thus you will have essentially two groups of people. One with guilty (predominantly white) goodie two shoes Minnesotans who obey the law and will constantly castrate themselves in front of socialists and socialist policies. And another group (skewed towards a minority population, but also most certainly including white leftists/antifa/SJW/professional activist-victim/socialists) whose self-perceived victimhood and all-important egos will in their mind rationalize them to "heroically" riot, steal/loot property that is not theirs, destroy their town, and in general act like feral animals (but never major in STEM, get a job, stop having kids they can't afford, and in general take responsibility for themselves).
Again, I cannot emphasize how much of this is self-inflicted and how much of this is outside the rest of society's control, and thus why I (and neither you) should care. It is the consequence of decades of brainwashing generations of victims ... They are NOT capable of having a civilized society and you do not what to be part of this society (no matter how "cool" it is to be "in the city" or whatever crappy "theater" or "colleges" or culture Twin Cities politicians promote).
I don't know how many times I've told people to move out of Minneapolis, businesses to never invest in Minnesota, young people to start careers elsewhere, industrious black men to leave the ghetto, and that YOU DO NOT OWN YOUR OWN PROPERTY IN MINNEAPOLIS AS IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A LARGE COMMUNIST HOA. But nobody listens.
Again, more at the link.
Such perspectives help to explain why the dreadful Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress from that city, and why her predecessor was the appalling Keith Ellison (self-avowed Antifa supporter, progressive extremist and currently Attorney-General of Minnesota, who will take over the prosecution of the police allegedly responsible for the death of George Floyd. There goes any hope of a fair trial for them, IMHO.)
Let the powers that be ignore the law, and those responsible for enforcing it will pretty soon realize that if they do as they swore to do when taking the oath of office, they'll be treated as criminals. That's almost certainly why Minneapolis PD rolled over spinelessly, and abandoned one of its precinct headquarters to destruction by a mob of rioters. They knew they'd be damned if they did, and damned if they didn't. Personally, I'd be ashamed to work for an outfit like that . . . but I took (and still take) my federal law enforcement oath of office seriously. It remains binding on me in retirement, because it has no expiry date. Minneapolis PD clearly doesn't feel the same way about theirs.
I'm glad I don't live anywhere near that city, because if I were confronted by a mob of rioters bent on causing me harm, I'd be doing my level best to return the favor, particularly in defense of my wife and home. During eighteen years spent in various war and conflict zones, I came to understand what Josh Billings so famously quipped:
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
But four times he who gets his blow in fust.
As the old saying goes, there's many a true word spoken in jest. I've learned (the hard way) to be as fusty as I can, when danger makes it necessary. I recommend the principle, particularly in these troubled times - and doubly so in a progressive hellhole such as Minneapolis appears to have become.
Peter
