What a very odd day. I arrived at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis early for a planned “press conference” by J6er and white supremacist Jake Lang. Almost immediately the clashing camo wearing wanna-be Klan member (they’d never let him into the Klan, he’s Jewish) arrived riding in the back of a U-Haul.
Lang who recently destroyed a “PROSECUTE ICE” Ice sculpture in front of the Minnesota Capitol building on camera was arrested for it and was just released. He decided to explore his new found freedom (there is a felony charge hanging over his head for it) with a completely insane stunt. There was no press conference just an U-Haul truck with a bunch of white supremacists, a big cross, a paintball gun and bags of convenience store ice.
Driving along the road in front of the Whipple Federal building under the watchful eye of multiple law enforcement agencies he dropped ice along the road, speaking into a microphone as journalists and activists chased the rented moving vehicle. DC activist and professional megaphone-ist Patricia Eguino who is famous for her incredible screaming during right wing actions in the Capitol was peppersprayed by the weird men in the truck.
And with that he drove away. No press conference, just another weird failed stunt.
With what was supposed to be most of the days coverage over in about 10mins, I turned back to the crowd at Whipple which was just as perplexed as I was with just happened.
Thankfully many people brought dildos. Yes, it made for a fascinating day. The two excellent people that I met in the video at the top of the page were part of what streamer Jolly Good Ginger called “Operation Dildo Blitz.” And a blitzkrieg of dongs it was. People were putting them on the fences, on road signs and of course chucking the silicone sex toys in the direction of ICE’s building… and some of the cars that drove by.
Clearly that was too much fun for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s department so they decided to start pushing the rallied community members back behind the fences that were erected to protect ICE agents from snowballs and swear words.
Eventually that turned into threats of dispersal, which the crowd did not take well as they had just been trying to spread some love.
After many, many threats and me nearly getting run over by a very aggressive sheriff in an SUV, the Minneapolis State Troopers and Conservation officers joined in and started clearing the free speech zone completely. Governor Walz’s law enforcement agencies working together to help ICE have a slightly less uncomfortable time, once again.
After a couple selected arrests that caused the crowd to retreat to the transit parking lot. The assembled law enforcement agencies decided that the parking lot wasn’t far enough and using an LRAD canon they announced that everyone was under arrest and charged.
They chased protesters throughout the parking lot firing munitions at them. A completely insane use of force with little logic, other than they were tired of having to deal with the people protesting at Whipple. In the end they arrested several dozen, at least one person was bleeding from the head and many other I witnessed complaining of injuries after being tackled by officers. The arrests included a National Lawyers Guild legal observer (see in the gallery below.)
The scene was made all the more interesting by the fact that they allowed press to very closely document all of it. Usually we are either pushed far away or included in the arrests. You can take from that what you want.
There are several more stories and interviews from Saturday February 7th that I’ll delve into when I have more time in the coming days. But for now, I’m going to crash after another 16 hour day. Thanks as always for your support and reading.
