BY ED FELIEN Guilty! Guilty, as judged by the whole world. Everyone saw what happened. Millions watched 17-year-old Darnella Frazier’s iPhone video of Derek Chauvin squeezing the life out of George Floyd. The world was outraged. And local politicians acted surprised. Mayor Frey said, “That there will be Black Minneapolis…
BY SOREN STEVENSON & DON WILLIAMS This time the police killing was in Brooklyn Center. Last time it was Minneapolis, and before that Robbinsdale. Long before any of these, a man was beaten to death by police in Hibbing. The train of killings is widespread and storied, yet people who…
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE George Floyd Square George Floyd Square is still there! That’s the headline, but it’s not the whole story. Over the past eleven-plus months, several attempts have been made to close down the “occupation” and reopen the streets. GFS has continued to evolve, but it’s still there.…
BY TONY BOUZA Nostalgia is morbid homesickness. We are all susceptible. Take, for example, the Stenvig Years. The Seventies. Charles Stenvig, the president of the police union, got elected mayor three times for two-year terms, almost explicitly on the premise he’d control Black riots. The echoes I hear are of…
BY SAFIYO MOHAMED One of the tragedies of 2020 was the killing of George Floyd. George Floyd’s murder, caught on video, was one of the worst police killings that America has ever witnessed. I couldn’t imagine this happening in America where I believe the vast majority of people respect human…
BY DAVID TILSEN Margarita (Rita) Ortega announced that she is leaving the race for City Council in the 9th Ward. This is a vacant seat left by Alondra Cano’s decision to not seek re-election. Ms. Ortega has been a lifetime resident of the 9th Ward, mostly in the Little Earth…
THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF ARTICLES ABOUT THE 2021 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS MINNEAPOLIS. Believe it or not, 2021 is an election year in Minneapolis—a very important election year. The mayor and every City Council seat will be on the ballot in…
Thank you, Southside Pride, for showing a picture of Chief Arradondo on the front page of your April edition. Thank you for quoting Chief Arradondo regarding his words at the Derek Chauvin trial: “It’s not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics and our…
BY TONY BOUZA In the English history of man the wise (Homo sapiens) there has never been even one who didn’t consider him(her)self a national leader. It might tempt you to ask—then where are all those cockups coming from? People—leadership is in short supply. Just looking at our last few…
Conscientious objection Conscientious objectors of every generation have heard some version of this: “Your freedom to be a conscientious objector was won for you by the military you refuse to join and the wars you refuse to fight.” Yet, those same generations have seen the military used to suppress the…
BY KATHRYN KELLY The Metropolitan Council has prepared a comprehensive development guide for the Twin Cities metropolitan area called Thrive MSP 2040. It “provides a framework for shared vision for the region over the next 30 years.” Part of this planning is defined in the 2040 Regional Parks Policy Plan,…
BY ED FELIEN Daunte Wright was pulled over in Brooklyn Center while driving his parent’s car for driving with expired license tabs. The officer in charge, Kim Potter, was a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Park Police Department and former head of the police officer’s union. She was training new…
BY KAY SCHROVEN When the going gets tough, the tough get going, right? Last spring, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, when chaos and violence erupted on East Lake Street, Father Joseph Gillespie, O.P. (aka: The Patron Saint of Cautious Optimism) of St. Albert the Great Catholic…
For all of us, President Biden, stop the Enbridge tar sands oil pipeline from traversing Minnesota. I spoke at my court hearing in Aitkin, Minn., last week. After eight years of fighting pipelines within the law, I needed to civilly, disobediently, say STOP, no more. This pipeline is wrong. It…
The queen on the hill I am writing about the article Ms. Kathryn Kelly wrote for Southside Pride about Minneapolis Park Board Commissioner Steffanie Musich that appeared on the front page of the March 2021 Nokomis edition. I want to express two concerns I have about the piece: It was…
