MINNEAPOLIS — It is a tender moment in Minnesota, where the Twin Cities have been forever marked by twin tragedies: killings by law enforcement officials not quite six blocks and six years apart.
The working-class neighborhood where both Renee Nicole Good and George Floyd were killed has experienced more than its fair share of anguish. I was raised about a mile south of both scenes. In recent days, I have found myself reporting on another incident of police violence in my hometown close to the same streets and alleys I used to ride my bike up and down as a kid.
The Twin Cities have been forever marked by twin tragedies.
The killing of Renee Good happened on a stretch of Portland Avenue — a major thoroughfare where residents are known for their community ties. There are block parties and puppet shows and extravagant yard decor. At least three homes have massive dinosaurs replicas in their front yards.
For residents of this stretch of south Minneapolis, this latest killing added to deep-seated trauma that has not healed, though the lawsuit state and local officials announced Monday to block the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation may help.
The Twin Cities were ravaged by riots, rage and looting after Floyd’s death. The Third District police precinct was set ablaze. The acrid sting of smoke and tear gas lingered in the air for days. People in this area still talk about the protesters who used backyards as bathrooms and porches as impromptu havens while residents had to decide whether to approach strangers or remain safely huddled inside. Their houses and apartments were close enough to the unrest to see the sky glow orange.
These residents struggled to move on after the trial and conviction of Derek Chauvin played out on national television. Faded Black Lives Matter signs are still in windows, many now sitting next to vivid “De-Ice Minnesota” or “ICE-OUT” placards (a play on words with particular sentiment here not only about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement surge but also because so many locals keep canisters of de-icer spray handy for frozen windshield wipers and car locks during frigid winters).
“How much can one neighborhood take?” said Nikesha Lust, who works with a group that is trying to deescalate tensions. “This is something nobody wants, or nobody asked for, but it’s here. There are people who come here just for that reason, to cause problems and go home, and then we are stuck with no gas stations to go to. No grocery stores. And everybody is just mad. We finally got to a point where we were getting back on our feet here.”
George Floyd’s death is never really in the rearview mirror for Minneapolis, especially for a particular stretch of the near southside.
George Floyd’s death is never really in the rearview mirror for Minneapolis, especially for a particular stretch of the near southside. Property values are down since 2020. There are visible reminders in the graffiti, the murals and the mountain of stuffed animals and dried flowers still standing as a makeshift monument. Residents see it in the neighborhood businesses that clawed their way back to viability and the ones that never recovered. They deal with it in their daily egress around the busy intersection at 38th and Chicago, where cars, buses and bicycles must navigate the memorials and tourists. Yes, tourists: People from around the world still arrive to take photos where Floyd was killed and leave mementos.
A few blocks away, makeshift memorials have been amassing to the more recent high-profile victim. Flowers, candles, stuffed animals and crowds have accumulated to honor Good and protest aggressive immigration enforcement. Amid bonfires and stacks of pizza delivered several times a day, people sing and chant and leaders with bullhorns make speeches. For residents near 34th and Portland, there is now another monument to pain right outside their front doors.
There are deep worries about anger spilling over into unrest, infused with concern about the aggressive militarized law enforcement tactics not seen before on Minneapolis streets.
It’s not lost on people here that Floyd’s killing ignited a national debate about police reform and restraint. And the irony that the hundreds of immigration officers who have descended on Minnesota wearing masks and military gear are operating in a manner that appears blind to the hard-won reforms that followed the Floyd tragedy.
In essential ways, the tensions gripping the Twin Cities revolve around tolerance. Minnesota has historically prided itself on tolerance. The state is known for its progressive politics and its open-armed approach to diversity and immigration.
Those values have been tested somewhat in recent years as large waves of immigration strained the state’s welfare system, and by a political scandal that involved hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud perpetrated by a small circle of scammers. A renewed focus on a years-old fraud case and its Somali offenders helped escalate the immigration sweeps roiling neighborhoods.
Minnesotans have responded with a robust effort to monitor and document ICE activity. Networks of citizen patrols use whistles, kazoos and car horns to warn immigrants and neighbors about sweeps. The organization behind that effort runs deep. A constellation of ICE monitoring groups has sprung up all over the state but is especially prevalent in the Twin Cities. They send out communications on how to mobilize and monitor activity. They track geographic positions and license plates on vehicles used by immigration agents. “Heat maps” show where sweeps have been carried out. Not only are there trainings on how to conduct this work, but they have also set up legal hotlines. Instructions have been vetted by lawyers to help ensure that ICE monitors do not cross lines. “They said they are going after the worst of the worst but are the worst of the worst mothers dropping their kids off at school?” asked Andrew Fahlstrom, a leader with a citizen monitoring group called Defend the 612. (The name draws on the original area code for Minneapolis.) “When it’s really bad in our neighborhoods, it looks like from 5 a.m. until about 7 p.m., packs of cars roaming the streets trying to grab anyone they can. It looks like cultural malls — Somali malls, Latino mercados — being targeted. People being grabbed left and right,” Fahlstrom told me. “It looks like bus stops on Lake Street where three cars pull over, armed agents with masks on, who don’t identify themselves, taking a human being and throwing them into a car.” Fahlstrom said he thinks the raids are meant to instill fear. But instead of driving people underground, residents continue to sign up as monitors. As of Saturday, more than 4,000 had volunteered. “Renee Good could have been any one of us. She wasn’t doing anything different than what thousands of people on the street were doing. People are committed. People are showing up. People are taking to the streets to protect each other. I’m not afraid. I’m here to make sure that we protect each other. And that’s what we’ll do every day as long as we can,” Fahlstrom said. State political leaders have said they think that Minnesota is being used as a proving ground for what Americans everywhere will accept from a law enforcement agency that operates without clear identification and using military-type uniforms and tactics. “This is in essence a federal invasion of the Twin Cities, and it must stop,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said Monday, announcing the lawsuit to end the ICE presence in the state. “This surge has made us less safe.” The Trump administration calls the immigration sweep in Minnesota “Operation Metro Surge.” Although residents are traumatized, they are resilient. Some have taken to calling the immigration patrols the Ice Storm — and noting that Minnesotans are used to dealing with those.
Michele Norris is a senior contributing editor for MS NOW. 
