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(Linda Mann shared this message from a 3rd Precinct resident on FB.)
Dear friends
Thank you for all your kind messages & offers of help and comfort. To
answer your question: No. We are not okay. I mean, we are all here, we
are alive. The kids are doing good. But this situation is fucked. We are
at failed state level. The last several nights have had trucks of armed
men cruising through the streets. Fire everywhere. Fire department
unable to respond. The ivy building fire behind my house was kept at bay
for hours by two young women with a garden hose on the roof. Greg Green
and family fought a raging fire at the roofing company with buckets.
Shaleen Rae saved residents of an encampment from being engulfed in
flames. If these fires had not been put out, our whole block would burn.
Yesterday a police officer came by and told us that "You know what you
need to do if they come to your house" - basically acknowledging that
there will be no law enforcement response if we are threatened and
telling us we need to defend ourselves by shooting to kill (ummm...I
dont have guns). When I asked a national guard member how to call them
when armed gunmen threaten my life and my neighborhood is burning, he
told me I need to leave the neighborhood. When I pointed out I feel my
neighborhood will burn if we leave he said, "Its not my city."
Right now the national guard, state police, and MPD are lined up
opposite protestors at the new protest zone right on 29th Av and Lake 3
blocks from my house. They are defending a blocked off section of lake
street which has already been totally decimated and continuing this
destructive face off with protestors. Our grocery stores, restaurants,
library - they are already looted, burned. This neighborhood- where you
didnt need a car, where you could walk or bike and pretty much find
everything you need...its destroyed. Now we want to save our homes and
remaining businesses.
I want to be clear on one thing. I and my family have been protesting
this whole time. We've been gassed along with everyone else; my son was
shot with a rubber bullet. The cops sat on the rooftop aiming guns at us
& never said a word/ made an announcement/ acknowledged our pain. I feel
rage and I hear the totally justified rage from the community about the
murder of george floyd and the police terroristic violence on black and
brown bodies. In response to the community standing up and demanding
accountability, the cops have maliciously abandoned the city.
There are some protestors out there looting and burning, its true.
But there are also a whole lot of other folks coming in from elsewhere
who want to see this city burn. Who want to prove that we are the
cartoonish dystopian city villified by the right. They're here too and
they are fucking shit up. Theyre parking their cars with out of state
plates in front of my house and heading down to the protest like its a
big party. Theyre zipping through my street at night, intimidating us.
Whether its legit protestors fed up with the status quo or these right
wing interlopers (or both), these people are terrorizing my working
class neighborhood and destroying businesses that serve and employ my
neighbors. If all this burns, it will just be rebuilt as a place for
rich folks. A totally gentrified not-Lake street.
Some ugly suburbanesque sprawl. Its hard to say this, but we fucking
need order. It does not feel like there are enough ntl guard down at
lake street to patrol our streets and they dont seem to care, either. We
on my block are taking things into our own hands and going to try to
keep our neighborhood from burning down again tonight. But thats fucked.
Hopefully the ntl guard doesnt antagonize people and make this worse.
There doesn't seem to be enough of them to enforce curfew. Night 4, here
we come.
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