Author of The Blackout Book and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted
A shocking cell phone video has emerged from Minneapolis showing authorities ordering a group of women off their porch and shooting paint rounds at them when they don’t comply quickly enough.
The video was recorded by Tanya Kerssen in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis and posted on Twitter.
The group of women was shown watching a small army of uniformed people thought to be members of the National Guard and the Minneapolis Police Department. The officers were allegedly enforcing the city’s curfew due to riots and violence after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a member of the Minneapolis PD.
Even worse, the Minnesota Dept of Public Safety tried to cover for officers.
According to the curfew order by the governor of Minnesota, people were not allowed to be in public areas, including streets.
Last night, according to the city’s “Frequently Asked Questions” about the curfew, the women were well within their rights to be outdoors on their porch. But the Minnesota Department of Public Safety quietly changed that answer after the video emerged.
Luckily, the internet is forever and there’s an archive that shows last night’s answer.
Today, however, it says you must follow orders to go inside if you’re told to by authorities.
Whoopsie. That’s gotta be embarrassing.
Never think it can’t happen to you.
If Selco has taught us anything, it ought to be: never think it can’t happen to you, no matter who you are, no matter where you are. Be sure to sign up for his live webinar to make sure you’re ready for anything during this time of great unrest.
Purely from a survival point of view, of course, leaving the situation is always the wisest option. (Selco wrote about his take on this incident here.)
If you think your constitutional rights are safe right now and that our freedom is guaranteed, this video should clearly prove you’re mistaken. If you think that those women should have immediately “complied” with orders barked at them even though they were within their rights (at least last night) to be outdoors, then you never really believed in freedom to begin with. If you can’t understand that the situation was rather a shock to people who before this moment never expected to be shot at by police, then you must live in a very different world.
We’re Americans, not slaves to quickly obey and scurry away when people in uniforms bark orders at us while we’re on our own property. It’s time we make this clear.
When man with gun tells you to go inside your house, you go inside.
Indeed. Being told to go into your house is quite different than being told to get in the box car, isn’t it?
Some folks want to pretend there isn’t any difference…but there is.
But is that the first step?
Daisy, I can’t believe that you ran this story, what the heck is wrong with you? Not all of them, but the Cops are the GOOD GUYS. Try living without people to control evil.
Various Cities are reporting that pallets of bricks are “showing up” at places where riots are expected to happen tonight.
There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m not anti cop. I’m anti tyranny. Why would I cover up actions like those men just took? These women weren’t threatening them. They were on a power trip. They work for us, not the other way around.
I’m also not fan of people who destroy the property of others like you mentioned with those bricks.
Wrong is wrong no matter what outfit you’re wearing.
Daisy, this is war. And in war, rules go out the window. I’d have thought you’d learned that from Selco. Those women were very lucky those were paint balls and not live rounds…which will be the next step going forward.
It’s a good article as a cautionary tale, but selective outrage serves no purpose in a dumpster fire. Events are fluid. We all need to adapt and keep up.
Too true. Credibility lost here.
I guess there’s Dumpster Fire fighting etiquette I was not aware of.
Didn’t Selco recently have an article on this very site about “not being there”?????
Don’t Be There with your damn phone up like it’s prom night when the cops sweep the streets. And scream for you to get inside. Maybe there was an active shooter running through, you don’t know.
Seems obvious.
Cops are people. There are lots of good cops, but there are also some bad ones, just like normal folks. Worse yet, just like normal people, when you get cops in a crowd they can react with unfortunate mob behavior that they would never engage in on their as individuals (e.g. the Stanford Jail experiment). And perhaps even worse, this group apparently included national guard types, folks who are not trained for this sort of thing, have no experience in such situations and therefore less emotional self-control and self-discipline, and who are therefore dangerous to the very public they are supposed to be protecting (like at Kent State).
It’s laudable that you support the police and their ostensible goals. And it’s understandable that the obvious threats we need to protect ourselves from can feel terribly threatening. But it’s vital, if our democracy is to survive (well, as much as we have left), it’s vital that we demand that the authorities upon whom we rely for democratic order actually comply with the requirements for that order.
These folks were horribly abused by law breakers IN UNIFORM. Such behavior deserves only condemnation, not uncritical excuse.
Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.
-V for Vendetta
You gotta be kidding me – they were abiding by the rules, on their own property, NOT in the street, and in an average neighborhood, not looting downtown or near stores. The ones who paint balled them were NOT going by the rules. They need to be held accountable. I hope the ladies lawyer up and deal with this. When is it ok to shoot anything at people on their own property? Just because they are supposed to be “the good guys” they don’t get a pass. Sorry not sorry.
They were dressed like antifa and being scofflaws. No one else on that street was being shot at…because they were in compliance with the emergency order given them. They’ll probably go out to loot tonight and catch lead. I won’t shed a tear for them.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…it must BE a duck.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!
They had NO moral high ground.
” they were abiding by the rules”
What part of “GET IN YOUR HOUSE” did YOU not understand?
Stop aggressively arguing with every person in the comments. There’s a reason all your posts are going into moderation.
LittleMouse is correct that they were abiding by the rules laid out by the state on the state’s website.
I’m tired of dealing with your rudeness and your smug superiority toward other readers and toward me. You’re done here. Bye now!
You can be right, and you can be dead right. The choice is yours. In a riot situation, you must pick your battles, because guess what, our “civil rights” went out the window when the Protest became a Riot.
Yep. That’s why they’re so useful to people with wicked intentions. Half of what is going on is psychological warfare.
The men on the street were armed stressors. And should be treated as such! Period.
Unbelievable. Who’s in charge of the laws right now and who’s in charge of letting law enforcement know what they are day to day? This is evolving into martial law without calling it that. The courts are too slow to respond to complaints. What is the alternative?
It became martial law the moment the first fire was set. We are in a State of War. What did you expect the response to be? And that is the entire point of the exercise. The radical Commie Left can not win a legitimate election. THIS is their only remaining path to power.
What is the alternative? To let the Commies burn your home down around your ears. Would that be preferable to you? Because I’d have a major problem with that.
My complaint is that the response has been too slow and too timid. Put a curfew in place and shoot to kill everyone in violation. No exceptions. Do that, and this crap ends overnight. I guarantee it.
busted
That’s ridiculous. You can’t be sitting quietly on your own front porch? There was no rioting or looting happening on the porch, and those home owners were well within the letter of the curfew rules (at least on that date). That was not behavior worthy of getting shot at (with anything).
“It” can indeed happen anywhere.
Thank you, Daisy for running this story. I feel uneasy anytime a cop is near even though I’m a law abiding white citizen. Don’t trust them, don’t trust anyone really. These women and any other American has the right to stand on their own property without the threat of law enforcement. The police were wrong when murdering George Floyd and they were wrong firing paint at these women. Thank you for showing an unbiased story. If you listen to every man with a gun I feel sorry for you, your freedoms were taken long ago.
The DPS’s wording reminds me of the Soviet Union’s constitution and criminal code.
“Handing power over to the government to police social media networks won’t fix the problem of censorship, it will enable it even more.” – http://www.renegadetribune.com/trumps-executive-order-on-social-media-opens-the-door-to-bigger-government-regulation-tyranny/
http://www.renegadetribune.com/thanks-to-ag-barr-and-senator-mcconnell-patriot-act-will-soon-be-much-stronger-and-more-invasive/
There’s also the potential to persecute or harass dissidents as well.
“Minnesota Using Contact Tracing to Find “White Supremacists” Behind Rioting and Looting”
http://www.renegadetribune.com/minnesota-using-contact-tracing-to-find-white-supremacists-behind-rioting-and-looting/
I’ve stated this once on my fb page. The police have got to decide whom side they are on. The side of the constitution,or power nutty politicians. If these women were permitted to sit on their porch according to the rules, then the police have got to answer for their action. They probably won’t. One day,someone is gonna give the cops a taste of their own medicine. Then,the real S is gonna hit the fan. Anyone on this site who agreed with this action,need to have their rrights taken away. They don’t deserve them
Are you kidding me??? What ever happened to respect!? They police were not overreacting or over reaching. They’re doing the job! Those girls were warned multiple times! Could you not hear the tone in the officer’s voice?? Do they think they’re immune to the violence occurring? It was for THEIR SAFETY to remain/go inside. Just common sense. When you’re given multiple chances and you do not comply then you are punished.
NOPE! GOT WHAT THEY DESERVED!
Good thing I’m not a police officer. Wouldn’t tolerate the stupidity and/or entitlement.
Even though I disagree Daisy, thanks for the discussion.
Actually, I think it was the tone of the officers barking those commands that totally lost me. My son was law enforcement, so I understand the need to clear an area for their safety as well – they all want to go home to their families at night. But this video (along with the neck-kneeling video) shows a total power/ego trip. Arrogant a$$holes is what they are, using those words and that tone plus the self-assurance that they are a rule of law unto themselves. If this is all the professionalism they can muster, fire them. If they aren’t smart enough to know how to use verbal language correctly to convey what needs to be done without causing even more problems, then they are not law-enforcement material – they are deficient and need to go.
People need to understand that cops are trained to view every civilian as a potential criminal, intent on doing harm to them. About 10 years ago my husband came very close to being arrested by a group of six cops and I, while sitting on a couch next to our 12 year old terrified daughter trying to give advice to my husband who was in shock, was told that if I opened my mouth again I would be arrested. The cops all had their hands on their guns. My husband’s crime? Peacefully visiting his dying mother in her own home, which we had a key to, being cared for by hospice workers. Our nutty vulture of a niece and husband had tried to order us out of the house and were unsuccessful, so they had called the cops and told them that my husband had busted down “their” front door, was probably going to kill their elderly dying grandma, and they weren’t sure if he had a gun or not. (We only found this out later when a police chief friend of ours from our town went to the station to find out why the police has totally handled this so wrong.) The officer in my husband’s face was upset because my husband was talking and gesturing with his hands trying to answer his questions. He felt that the waving hands were a threat. My husband’s nickname at work is the orchestra director because he talks with his hands all the time. My husband was in shock from being told less than an hour before by a good friend of his mom’s that his mom had only hours to live and he should go see her ASAP. His mom was notorious for going weeks without talking or seeing anyone, so we had not known that she was even ill. So I was trying to get through to him to lower his hands and to stop moving them at all and was threatened by a cop for this. Did the cops use their powers of observation to look around? No. There was no broken door. There were no beaten up relatives. No overturned furniture. No screaming and yelling. They walked into my MIL’s bedroom to find her laughing and joking with us, all seated on her bed and holding hands. This was in an upscale suburban community of about 80,000. My husband is a well known and respected fire chief of many years in a nearby town. The cops didn’t care. They treated him with contempt and wouldn’t allow
him to show them his badge. That night was the last time my husband ever saw his mom again. He didn’t want another confrontation with his niece with the police being called and his mom distressed. Please take this as a huge lesson and warning. Most cops are good people and do the right thing. But it only takes a few bad ones to turn your day into a tragedy. Do not argue with a cop. Assume that they will arrest you and shoot you. Live to fight another day. And don’t wear all black and cover your face with black bandanas lurking in the darkness of your porch to watch the parade of tanks and armed riot police when your neighborhood is on fire and being looted, then ignore the cop’s order to go inside. They might think you are taking cover to shoot at them and shoot you first. Also, be careful of relatives who want control of your healthcare directive and finances so they can loot from you on your death bed and keep your true loved ones from being with you in your final hours. It happens. Be safe everyone.
This begs the question…why are LEO’s being armed with PAINT GUNS during a RIOT?!?
Does that not seem overtly stupid to anyone besides me? And for a myriad of reasons.
“Hey you! Get off the streets or I’m going to stain your clothes and maybe give you a welt!”
You gotta respect that, right?
Jesus wept.
This is so these ladies could be identified later should they cause trouble. Learned this during concealed carry training. Can’t shoot someone running away from your property so you light them up with a paint gun and tell the cops what to look for.
You would be glad that they were using pepper rounds instead of live rounds if it were you. Even the rubber bullets hurt a lot.
Jesus wept because too many people are ignorant.
I do appreciate all of the comments that point out that this is war even if it only lasts a week or a few weeks, and hopefully we’ll get sounds like the criminal out of the White House and start to have the u.s. restored. BTW, the protest in Denver have been peaceful so far today.
Some cops are bullies like that, then wonder why they are so little liked and trusted.
It’s worse for me, as I have friends and relatives who are officers. It’s cops like that that endanger my friends and relatives. Just like EB above, unless I know the officer personally, I’m uneasy every time a cop is near.
That’s what happens when you dress like antifa and don’t do what you’re told!
That was actually pretty funny! I’ma gonna watch that again!
This is why your comments are all in moderation. Your opinions are vile. Wearing black doesn’t mean you’re “dressed like Antifa.”
I’m sorry, Daisy. But I have been looking to you for advice to survive basically an Apocalypse. And you frequently talk about training in Bosnia or wherever, and then I see you pearl-clutching over some Internet goofball LOLing at a person getting hit by a paintball, which is what a lot of people up here in these parts do for fun.
Are we really so delicate?
I’m confused, and more than a little taken aback
What happens if we meet Neegan?
You didn’t see the 30 comments of his that I removed attacking every single person who commented. He has spent the last two days making dozens and dozens of comments, only about 4 of which were something other than insults directed toward other readers. I don’t want to see my comments section turn into a place where people who genuinely want help are afraid to ask because people like Charles will mock them.
My goal here is to create a place where readers can help one another, not just tear each other down. Over the past week, trolls have come out of the woodwork. I don’t mind being personally insulted – that’s honestly part of the job. But when you come in and tear down the other folks who are here to learn and converse because they may be new at this or have a differing opinion, then it’s not beneficial. I have asked him to tone it down in the past. This is the second time he has had a time out from commenting. He lasted only 3 days this time around before becoming detrimental.
I wish you the best and appreciate your input. Please consider that what you see in the comments section isn’t always the only things a person has posted.
This is a cut and paste from Simon blacks news letter it succinctly puts it into the way I see this situation
June 1, 2020
Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico
It’s been nearly two and a half decades since I was a brand new, freshly bald-headed cadet entering my first summer at West Point.
Everything about it was agonizing. We operated on little sleep. The hazing never stopped. There were constant military and physical exercises. And it was only the beginning of four years of endless pressure and stress.
In retrospect I can admit it was definitely a character-building experience. And I understand why they deliberately make it so stressful.
The entire purpose of West Point is to develop men and women of integrity to be able to lead soldiers into combat. They’re not playing around– it’s serious business.
And I remember one of the first things they drilled into us from Day One was the Cadet Honor Code.
At West Point, the Honor Code is incredibly strict. It says that a cadet shall not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.
If they can’t trust you to tell the truth about something mundane, or to not cheat on a physics test, how can they trust you with people’s lives?
The ‘toleration clause’ is especially unique; tolerating someone else’s dishonor made you dishonorable. If you knew someone else had violated the code, but you didn’t do anything about it, you were complicit.
It’s not to say that cadets don’t have strong bonds of loyalty to one another. We do.
But our sense of duty prevailed above all else, even if that duty required expelling a friend for an honor code violation.
The Corps of Cadets has been ‘self-regulating’ in this way for more than two centuries; the cadets themselves are responsible for weeding out the occasional bad apples who manage to make it through the Academy’s absurdly rigorous admissions process.
This system works. And institutions that don’t have duty-first, self-regulating culture tend rot from within.
Just look at the Catholic Church: decades of criminal sex abuse and cover-ups show that their priority was NOT to seek justice or take care of their devoted followers.
Instead, they took care of their own by quietly and internally reassigning serial sex offenders who had a history of abusing children.
There were plenty of Church officials who knew about it. But they ignored their fundamental duty to their followers, and instead put their own people first. That makes them complicit.
It’s often the same with police. While their primary duty is supposed to be protecting and serving their communities, cops will frequently take care of their own, first and foremost.
And the video that surfaced last week of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pinning his knee to the neck of George Floyd– a defenseless, handcuffed, unarmed suspect in clear medical distress– is a example of this value system.
Chauvin displayed horrendous moral depravity. Yet there were three other officers on the scene. They knew what was happening. They saw Chauvin essentially strangle George Floyd. But they did nothing to stop it.
Maybe they didn’t want to be disloyal to Chauvin.
Maybe they were worried that the other cops at the precinct would think they were a rat if they said or did something to stop Chauvin.
Maybe Chauvin was the ranking officer and they felt that they didn’t have the authority to stop him.
Whatever the reason, none of the officers present had the humanity or courage to carry out their sworn duty.
Now, whenever something like this happens, the apologists usually say, “Oh that’s just a few bad apples.”
Maybe so. And in fairness, there are countless police officers who put their duty first on a daily basis.
But are we really to believe that these four bad apples just happened to respond to the same call, at the same time, on the same beat? Is this really some wild coincidence?
Or is it possible that, maybe just maybe, there’s something in the cultural DNA of police departments that prioritizes personal loyalty above fundamental duty?
Consider that the immediate response of the Minneapolis Police Department was to issue a vague statement that Floyd died “of a medical incident during a police interaction.”
So even in the department’s official response, their first instinct was to protect the four officers.
Then, when the uproar started, the police union in Minneapolis issued a statement of support for the officers. They were trying to take care of their own.
And despite all the evidence– the multiple videos and eye witness accounts– it still took four days to arrest Chauvin.
Plus the other three officers have not yet been charged, and at least two of them were allowed to leave the state.
That would never happen for a regular civilian. If you or I were caught on video strangling someone, the cops would be at our door that very day to arrest us.
There would be no statement of support, no professional courtesy. They’d arrest us first, and then build the case.
But again, the police take care of their own, even if that means abandoning their primary duty to the public. This is part of the cultural DNA of police departments around the world.
According to data pulled by the Wall Street Journal, there have been more than 2,600 civilian complaints filed against Minneapolis police officers since 2012. Only TWELVE of those 2600 (0.46%) resulted in any discipline against the officer.
This is not isolated to Minneapolis; in major cities across the country, from Baltimore to Chicago to Los Angeles, the rate at which civilian complaints against police officers are ‘sustained’ is typically in the low single digits.
Is this also a wild coincidence?
It seems obvious that culture is a major part of the problem. And little will change as long as taking care of their own outweighs their fundamental duty to the public.
Oh and they issued live ammo now to national guard.
Charles when they start shooting like you suggest they will find out 40 to 1 is bad odds in gun fight. Many will sit on sidelines and hope.and pray that this can be avoided but when it comes there are many who say not on my lawn. There are many now who have come back with no safetys on the kill or be killed mentality from our 3 decades of war to be chewed and spit out by the system. Forgotten and marginalized lots of anger lots of guns and ammo just waiting for right trigger. You really want to start this because once it does like in everyplace the fire will only be quenched in blood of the guilty and innocent and it never stops at equal.
You start killing ex military or family members and there will be a backlash of biblical size.
Last thing I would want is to see here what we have done to others overseas under guise of aid and regime change. Those who thirst for war have never been there for I know not one sane warrior who will fight a war if there is another way.
What a bunch of jerks (the cops). They made NO effort to be polite. They just barked orders at the women like they were dogs in the street. That’s why people don’t respect them.
Sorry, I don’t take my rights for granted, and I recognize that they could be diminished or taken away at any time. Particularly being a woman, we are always at risk. There are many good, honest, decent policeman and national guardsman, but just like everywhere else you never know when the bad one might pop up. I believe in protecting myself. I would not have been on the porch.
Are you kidding me? The cops finally address the violence, and move to clear a street/neighborhood, and they see some people in low light on a porch they DO NOT know if they are looters pretending to be residents or what by LOOKING AT THEM
They warned the people to get inside. The people did not.
The cops weren’t taking a COVID health walk, they were trying to CLEAR the street. And so of course, stand there like a dunce and film shit because it’s all about your freakin Twitter
And you don’t like the phrase “Light ’em up”
I suppose after the ignored warnings to get inside, a nice officer should say “pardon me, Please retreat to your personal safe space at this time. So sorry but we don’t know you and we need to clear this street. For your fuckin safety you dipshits”
While looters and mobs are lighting the city up, with real flames, you are upset Special Unicorn style, by the phrase.
You’re kinda hard to please.
Looters, or cops – pick one.
You should know better than to think oppressive govt measures won’t escalate into more and more oppression. Let the people protect their own neighborhoods, it’s not like police haven’t stood down before when it was convenient for them.
Tyranny or freedom, pick one.
This reminds me of, I think it was the Boston marathon bo.mbings? When SWAT or some other uniformed goons swept through people’s neighborhoods essentially terrorizing them, looking for the alleged bom.bers. They were knocking on people’s doors and everything.
Most of these people getting yelled at like children are just going to keep paying property taxes for the property that obviously isn’t theirs lol.
“It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
A cop’s or a National Guard order supersedes any previous order or written “guidelines” given. It is the law that a citizen has to obey any legal order given by law enforcement. Just do what you’re told and whine about it later.
And as somebody below stated, “who’s side are you on?”. The cops/National Guard are there to protect the public and cooperation with them is the correct response. Hanging around to see if they mean it, or standing on your rights to be where they said not to be, puts you on the side of Antifa, imo.
Further, the Minneapolis Dept. of Public Safety wasn’t “covering” for the cops or National Guard. They were clarifying the guidelines so members of the public would not think, in future, that orders given by public safety officers or National Guard did not have to be obeyed.
Seriously, if you object to following orders by legally instituted bodies such as police or National Guard, you ought to be out there protesting with the Antifa and other groups.