What do butterflies have to do with the New Moon?
Living through "Operation Metro Surge."
This is what it has been like.
On Monday January 5, Governor Walz stepped out of the race for reelection. At the time, I said on the family chat that I was going through the stages of grief. Just two days later, the situation changed when ICE Agent Jonathan David Ross shot and killed Renee Mecklan Good in her car on Portland Avenue. I have moved on to gratitude that he had the wisdom to let go of campaigning so he can now throw his all into fighting the federal siege of Minneapolis. May his liberation serve our state well.
On Wednesday January 7 at 12:37pm, a neighbor texted Josh and me, are you guys okay?
Josh responded: Happy to say we weren’t involved.
I asked: what is going on?
Josh responded: ICE shot a woman
She said: in a maroon Honda pilot.
The only thing I knew about her that first afternoon was she drove a car like mine. I promptly searched and saw the video that never showed her face but clearly showed her car tires backing up and her turning away. The New York Times has since analyzed and time synched with another two camera angles. ICE grabbing at her door handle. The other agent’s hand on the gun. The shots. Three of them!? The point blank range. The horrified voice behind the camera WHAT DID YOU DO?
The woman drove a car like mine. But I didn’t know if she was like me in other ways.
Another neighbor messaged me at 3:19 that day that there was to be a vigil at 34th and Portland at 4:30. That section of Portland Avenue is very familiar to me. As a one-way main artery heading south away from downtown paired with its sister Park Avenue which heads north, it’s a significant route when traveling through South Minneapolis.
The night of the shooting was my daughter’s last night in town and we planned to have dinner at our favorite restaurant on Nicollet Avenue, or “Eat Street,” renown for its international restaurants just northeast of where the shooting had happened. I was compelled to make a connection to the site by foot and meet the family at the nearby restaurant afterwards for dinner and a ride home.
Walking in the city right now is a mindfulness activity as so much snowfall happened over the Christmas Holidays when people were less able to clear their walk. A combination of fluctuating temperatures and foot traffic trampled the snow, rain, and slush into a 3 inch thick walking hazard across the metro. But the difficulty was appealing. Distraction? Maybe, somewhat, but more like a commitment to the energy that is required now. There will be no letting up from here.
I set off slowly, putting in my ear buds to listen to the citizen’s mixtape, choosing my steps carefully. As I went, the journey became an effort to recognize all that got us to this place and time. Movement can connect one to gratitude for working limbs, to dopamine and distraction, for the preparation to action by past tragedies and realizations. It can even satisfy a sense of duty and a sense of intimacy to remove that layer of separation between me and my city.
Dark fell as I traversed the streets. Many residents I passed were chiseling away at the ice laden gutters and curbs and walkways. We exchanged greetings, I felt the need to commiserate with them over their efforts.
I took the time to notice what I didn’t yet know. Maybe the woman who had been killed was a Minneapolitan, white like myself with grown children, spending her spare time protecting her community because like me she had woke up with the city’s past tragedies. And then I imagined her as a black woman, fearless, defending what she knew to be right and just, yet another disproportionate loss at the hands of Law Enforcement.
I knew time would give me more answers. I also knew I was ready and my city was ready, and we had been working to get ready for a long time. We had already seen too much over this year. The school shooting at Annunciation last August and the killing of Melissa Hortman and her husband just last June. And there are probably things I’m forgetting. In 2020, when George Floyd died on video, we learned how to support each other through adversity. My mind traveled back further, Philando Castile’s murder rocked my world because I thought we learned when Jamar Clark had been killed. That was the death at hands of police that I attributed to finally waking me up.
I addressed the unknown woman in my mind - In those last moments were you trying to save yourself? Did you have any idea what was coming, backing up as you did before turning your wheels away from the hands grabbing at your car door? Or were you caught unawares, like I might have been that a too quick trigger finger was about to end your life.
I placed my attention on slippery sidewalks and made my way to the block where she encountered her death. As I walked, pedestrian numbers were growing. At first I was alone on the streets, but then others joined me in twos and threes. We traveled beside each other in silence. It was a pilgrimage. As we got closer, more and more people joined us. We turned the corner on to Portland together, heading another block north.
On Portland I was walking with a crowd and then I was in it. It is residential right there. At the light of 34th and Portland you could hear a voice over the loudspeaker but couldn’t make out the words. People stood about. I climbed up upon a berm of snow to stand along side a row of people trying to get a view of the speaker. You had to be as still as a city mouse to stand there and not slide back to the pavement, a tiny bit of jostling and we would all fall down.
It was there, when the chanting began, that I learned her name.
“Say her name.” “Renee good.” “Say her name.” “Renee Good.”
A voice raised behind me and to the left, “KILL ICE.” And around me voices rose in wails. “NO” Asserted the people walking in the swale of the bike path in front of me. “NO.” No.” “Non-violence!” someone said firmly. “Read the room.” someone else pleaded.
Not far from George Floyd square, the neighborhoods around the site of have been the seat of connection since 2020. Mutual aid and neighborhood action took shape in earnest in the aftermath of the unrest that followed the murder caught on video. These neighborhoods at the heart of South Minneapolis started it, and the rest of the city have taken their cues. Then to stand in a group of people who are reeling as you are, who feel besieged as you do, who also don’t know what is next, but have made the effort to show up is a salve. The chanting and shouting gives you an outlet. The crowd gives you direct connection. It is energizing to use your voice. It is energizing to express your freedom of speech.
In the days after the vigil, stories of the extensive web of mutual aid started coming in. Yes I heard tell of Mom’s signal chats. Many people I know signing up to be Constitutional Observers. Others giving rides to and from school, to and from work, to get groceries, to support businesses hit the hardest. And helping those that want to leave, do it with dignity. Some friends sub into restaurant shifts of people too scared to come to work. Salons are delivering supplies to those afraid to leave their homes. Others door knocking to offer help and connection. Friends volunteering at food shelves have told me that donations have increased so rapidly that they are full to overflowing. I am just so grateful for all we have done to get to this moment in time where Minneapolis is connected and even in the snow and ice and cold, neighbors are showing up to support neighbors.
Other stories also come forward. Children left behind as parents have been swept away, some home alone, some at the barbershop. A citizen with brown skin grabbed from the street and taken somewhere else to verify he was a US citizen (although he was declaring it the whole time). The response: “We’re so sorry. Take us to your favorite restaurant and we will buy you lunch.” When he refuses to put the people running his favorite restaurant in jeopardy, they offer him a job, so he can turn in his friends. Or the one where the group of ICE ate lunch and then proceeded to arrest everyone in the kitchen.
On January 10, 2026, three days after Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good in her car on Portland Avenue, MIRAC hosted a demonstration at Powderhorn Park to demand ICE get out. A large group of us went by car this time and the roads were teaming and crawling with people heading to show up and be counted. The Minneapolis Police Department estimated “tens of thousands” showed up. Larger than any of the other protests I have been to, it was peaceful and joyful with music and chanting. People handed out snacks and waters.
Sharing some listening and watching that really moved me:
Here is Minneapolis Police Chief O’Hara on The Daily Show on January 12, 2026. (He talks about what the police department has been working on since George Floyd and what Trump’s operations are putting under threat. He says it’s not the fact that ICE is here. We have had Immigration Operations here as long as there has been ice, it is how they are operating. They are not trying to keep the public safe in their interactions with people. He is steadfast in how protecting freedom of speech is the job of our law enforcement officers and is dedicated to a team that deescalates first and has a mission to build trust.
Here is an interview that Jana Shortfall of CARE11 does with two Constitutional Observers who were picked up by ICE as they were following them in their car. I was really struck by their compassion and attempt to connect to the ICE Agents who were guarding them during their detainment. I keep thinking of the young agent who asked her why she was there and how he thought everyone here in the city must be crazy. I really appreciated their compassion, ability to remain calm, and make their best attempt to connect, and now all the sharing they are doing.
So I know I haven’t really got you up to date with everything, but today is the day that my son is headed to his home across the sea and I have my own trainings and actions to do, but I tried to bring you a bit into my experience here. The reports of a MAGA podcaster planned protest in support of ICE in downtown Minneapolis yesterday worried us. I heeded the warnings to stay away and was relieved to hear last night that counterprotestors vastly outnumbered the protesters and throwing water balloons was the extent of the violence. I will update in comments as I have more stories to share.
Thank you for sharing your stories if you have them.
