My old neighborhood is in flames. For twenty years, I lived four blocks east and one or two blocks (two different residences) south of the now-infamous Third Precinct. I now live in a outer-ring suburb west of the Twin Cities, but my son and one of my brothers and two of my nieces live in Minneapolis, “The City of Lakes”.
The City of Fires seems to be a more appropriate name right now. Curfews in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and several inner-ring suburbs last night did not keep either protesters or rioters at home. The governor’s already talking about outside agitators although I’ve yet to see any actual evidence of this. It might well be true though, flames attract moths. Trump is considering invoking the Insurrection Act and deploying military police.
Another 1,000 National Guardsmen heading to Minneapolis as unrest continues
Several businesses that survived the first round of rioting the night before were reduced to smoldering rubble by dawn. Community-led cleanup efforts were underway Friday in much of the city, including the heavily damaged area around Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue as well as Uptown.
Among the scores of casualties was Ghandi Mahal, an Indian restaurant located about a block away from the third precinct. In a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, owner Ruhel Islam’s daughter, Hafsa, thanked “our neighbors who did their best to stand guard and protect Gandhi Mahal.”
“Don’t worry about us, we will rebuild and we will recover,” she wrote.
She also quoted her father: “Let my building burn,” he said, according to the post. “Justice needs to be served, put those officers in jail.”
A nearby U.S. post office on East 31st Street also burned overnight. The popular Hexagon Bar on 27th Avenue South was destroyed by fire, and the public library branch on East Lake Street was damaged.
Ghandi Mahal is/was the best Indian restaurant in the Twin Cities, I hope I get to eat there again if/when it re-opens. The Hexagon was a neighborhood bar that sometimes had good live music, I used to play poker with one of the bartenders. Spent more time standing in line at that P.O. than I’d care to admit, and the library was a great resource. I’ve even been in the Third Precinct twice, once to report a burglary (case never solved, no arrest made), and another time being a good citizen, turning in a 12 gauge shotgun shell I’d found on the sidewalk. I don’t own a shotgun. Yet.
All gone now.
Is this just the first round of a broader chaos?
This is a full societal breakdown. Racial injustice may be today’s rage. But there’s plenty of other injustices for people to go mad over. By the dogdays of August, no doubt, when the weekly $600 unemployment checks program has expired, riots will come to a Target near you.
After that, things will really get ugly.
