Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Adam, many of us across the country are seeing what's happening in Minneapolis through cell phone footage and clips filmed by, you know, everyday Americans walking around the street. But you have been on the ground there. Do the videos the rest of us are seeing capture what's going on or are we missing something beyond the frame?
The videos do capture a part of what's going on. And I think the existence of the videos in and of itself tells you something. And the only measure of accountability that the people of Minnesota have is by recording these things when they happen and showing the world what's happening here. One of the most important things that people are doing here is observing, right? They follow ICE around.
They alert people when ICE is in the neighborhood. But that's not the only thing people are doing. There are massive operations that are sort of locally organized around schools and churches where they're feeding people who are in hiding. And I went on some of these food runs. I saw these people. They are...
at home, their cars are covered with snow because they haven't taken them out because they're just sitting at home waiting for the invasion to be over.
As you likely have heard by now, last Saturday, Alex Preddy, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.
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Chapter 2: What events led to the community response in Minneapolis?
Citizen cell phone videos from multiple angles show Preddy with a phone in his hand before at least six officers tackle him, pinning him face down on the ground and shooting him in the back.
Department of Homeland Security and the wider Trump administration have given various interpretations over what the nation saw happen in this footage and in the footage of other clashes between ICE and the people of Minneapolis, which is what I want to get into today.
Where are these videos coming from and what it means that the government and the public are widely divided in what they are seeing in them. To get into this, I'm joined by Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic, who has been on the ground in Minneapolis.
Thank you so much for having me.
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. I want to talk a little bit about some of the tactics that not just you've seen, but also we've seen more broadly, those of us who are outside of Minneapolis and watching from our computers or phones or TVs at home.
One thing that's really struck me about this moment is the use of cell phone footage. These community members and neighbors have been out there documenting ICE's actions. Alex Preti himself appears to have been filming ICE moments before he was shot. What do you make of this form of observation as a method of protest?
I think it's the only option that they have because the federal government has sidelined or erased the internal office at DHS that used to be responsible for civil liberties and making sure that people didn't cross the line. And the only thing that people can do is is record them being off the leash and then let the rest of the world know what's happening so that they can respond politically.
What's extraordinary about this whole operation in Minnesota is that it's broad, it's localized, it's organized, it's effective. There's been some literature about this, and one of the things that makes nonviolence so effective is that more people can participate. If you are engaged in a violent campaign, that limits the amount of people who can participate.
But when you look at the people who are on the ground in Minneapolis who are you know, bringing food or patrolling or observing or going to protests. You know, it's people from all walks of life. It's moms, it's dads, it's all kinds of people. They're just normal, regular people who don't like the federal government coming in and trying to kidnap their neighbors.
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Chapter 3: What role do videos play in public perception of state violence?
Look, these people come from a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different walks of life. But what they share is a commitment to protecting their neighbors. And their neighbors are their neighbors, you know, no matter where they were born, whether they were born in Mogadishu or Minneapolis. These people are my neighbors and I'm going to protect them.
And I found that, you know, sort of profoundly moving because it's such a universalist sentiment. It really reminds me of sort of the best of American ideals.
You know, it's worth noting here that the Twin Cities are very racially diverse with large Somali, Hmong, and Latin American populations. And there have been accusations that ICE has been racially profiling the people they are stopping on the streets, not only in Minneapolis, but other American cities as well.
A big chunk of the people in Minneapolis, St. Paul are in hiding, not necessarily because they're undocumented, but because they're afraid of being racially profiled by immigration agents who are not going to treat them with any kind of respect and could possibly, you know, these encounters, people have gotten hurt or killed.
DHS has said accusations of racial profiling are, quote, disgusting, reckless and categorically false. And for anyone who has been hurt, the administration says it is because they have been impeding immigration operations.
And they're doing it because they care deeply about the people around them.
Yeah.
The idea that the people around you are your neighbors, regardless of where they come from, regardless of what they look like. I think there are a lot of people that would describe that as the best of what America can be. Yeah. Yeah. But Vice President J.D. Vance has described the protesters and people who are organized that you've just described as, quote unquote, engineered chaos.
Do these words capture what you saw?
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Chapter 4: How are community members documenting ICE actions?
This episode was edited by Nina Potok. Our supervising producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguini. All right. That's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR. I'm Brittany Luce. Talk soon.