Street Level View

“For weeks, these agents had been actors in a kind of theater of power, meting out various forms of state force and violence, framed by the smartphone cameras they carried, providing a steady stream of content for the Trump administration’s various social media platforms. What was clear in person, seeing the scene outside of the frame, were the limits of this performance of power. The agents had no capacity to maintain order or much apparent interest in doing so. Their presence was a vector of chaos, and controlling it was not in their job description. All that was holding the crowd back, as far as I could tell, was the knowledge that an officer like these shot a woman a week earlier and that another shot a man up the street an hour ago. I left the scene that night certain it would happen again.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): Watching America Unravel in Minneapolis.

+ “In the frozen streets of Minneapolis, something profound is happening.” Welcome to the American Winter.

+ Even some Republicans are calling for an investigation into what’s happening in Minneapolis. Republicans Call for ‘Transparent’ Investigation Into Fatal Minneapolis Shooting. And the White House is trying to distance itself from the attacks on the victim made by Stephen Miller (who called Pretti “an assassin [who] tried to murder federal agents”) and Kristi Noem. Here’s the latest from AP, The Guardian, and NBC News.