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This story ought to be getting a whole lot more attention than it is.
Minneapolis Police have been running something approaching a mafia-style protection racket targeting local businesses, especially minority-owned businesses.
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It gets wilder.
One of the people in on that racket? Derek Chauvin. One of the people who worked at El Nuevo Rodeo, a targeted business? George Floyd.
We already knew the two had crossed paths at El Nuevo Rodeo. That’s not news. But the whole situation takes on a different color when we realize that Chauvin was part of a pay-for-not-working fake security scam the police were running against the very business where Floyd provided real security. At minimum, it’s ironic. Maybe worse.
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One more bitter irony I guess I should note for those who don’t live here:
El Nuevo Rodeo was one of the businesses that burned to the ground in the uprising. They paid (were •forced• to pay) Derek Chauvin for 17 years to supposedly keep the place safe, and in the end his actions resulted in its total destruction.
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@inthehands
Maybe Chauvin burned it down.
@echanda @inthehands Much of the actual property damage was caused by plain clothes police so very likely.
@nini @echanda
I’ve heard a whole lot of rumbling to that effect, albeit no really solid confirmation. (The “Umbrella man” rumors didn’t pan out, for example.)
But in a way, it doesn’t matter. The police knew what they were starting when they ratcheted up the violence in those protests again and again and again. They wanted the city to burn, to teach us all a lesson about challenging them. All they had to do was create the environment and step back. Stochastic arson, if you will.
@nini @inthehands @echanda this is counterrevolutionary propaganda and I will say so every time I see it. Regular people can be legitimately angry, and they have agency to do things themselves!
@ian @nini @echanda
I want to be careful to recognize the many very different actors here, with different agendas.
The burning of the 3rd precinct was •not• an inside job. That was an extreme expression of very legitimate grievance by people who’d long been the target of police violence.
I don’t think those same people were saying “fuck Nuevo Rodeo, fuck Gandhi Mahal.” Same uprising, but not the same people with the same motivations. In particular…
@ian @nini @echanda
…if you look at who was targeted, there were surely white supremacists targeting minority-owned/associated buildings under cover of chaos, and sure, some of them could have been plainclothes police. And I know there were drunk idiots who don’t give a damn about the people, and just thought setting things on fire would be funny.
None of that undermines Ian’s point re burning of the 3rd precinct being a sincere expression of grievance by the aggrieved.
The building, which also housed El Nuevo Rodeo restaurant and club, was lost to arson on the same night protesters burned down the Minneapolis 3rd Police Precinct
@inthehands Yeah that was the eye-opening piece from that story. What transpired between those two while working security there? And did that color Chauvin's actions later?
@inthehands Literally just said "jesus fuckity FUCK!" out loud upon reading that.
I had to laugh at the line "ripe for corruption" because what about this isn't filthy with corruption?
@inthehands Could the RICO act be taken against the police? That would be insane.
@das_menschy
My armchair legal ignoramus understanding of RICO law is that it’s surprisingly narrow and complex, and if you think it’s RICO, it’s almost never actually RICO.
But…the bigger picture here is if what they weren’t doing was legal (or de facto legal because un-prosecutable), then the law is seriously screwed up and needs to change.
That'd be the day.
And it'll never happen. Honestly any real justice case on these issues would end up unraveling DC, Wall Street, the courts themselves-- the whole power structure is rotten.
@inthehands What do you expect, it's Minneapolis
It has often seemed to me that the only difference between the cops and criminals is that the state pays the cops.
@ThusSpakeMe
True. To be fair, it pays a lot of the other criminals too.
@inthehands cities should have heavily armed volunteer counter policing militias
@inthehands @lisamelton
The city should be required to repay the businesses -cash- for all they paid to these off-duty cops. No documentation needed by the businesses, just “I paid this much” and here is your truckload of cash.
Maddening.
@bubbajet @lisamelton
Take that money out of the officers’ pockets and I’m in.
@inthehands
That would be my first choice, but it’s probably already spent.
@bubbajet
Hey, we’re clearly fantasizing here, so let’s go all in.
(But in seriousness: I don’t want police to be even more of a vortex that siphons off money from city services that are actually positive things.)
@inthehands
Yea, you’re right.
My grandfather worked for a small engineering shop in Montreal. The cops came by and asked for a donation to their charitable organization, he declined.
Any car that parked in front of their office started getting a parking ticket.
They paid up and it stopped.
Those are gendarmes, not cops, but same.