This Wasn’t The Plan

From the Minneapolis StarTribune:

A housekeeper arriving early to her shift in south Minneapolis was confronted by two hooded teenagers outside her driver’s side window.

I thought that hoods were only what teenagers wore when they’re getting murdered by George Zimmerman.

One pointed a gun at her head, demanding that she get out, before firing three shots: two ricocheted off the window and a third struck her side-view mirror.

This needs to end. I hope Joe Biden has the guts to confiscate all of your AR-15s.

The woman threw her car into reverse, sending the teens fleeing in the stolen car they arrived in, the latest in a series of brazen attempted armed robberies and carjackings in a wave that is stretching across the city. Minneapolis residents are grappling with a triple-digit percentage increase in these crimes, and incidents occurring at all hours, including broad daylight.

Whoa! This wasn’t what George Floyd, scholar and diplomat, envisioned for his community.

Within a one-hour period Saturday morning, police reported three separate carjackings in southeast Minneapolis, including one where an elderly woman was struck on the head. Such attacks are up 537% this month when compared with last November.

“The numbers are staggering,” said police spokesman John Elder. “It defies all civility and any shred of common human decency.”

It also defies logic. This isn’t what defunding the police is all about.

In November, the toll of people shot this year surpassed 50 in Minneapolis, the most in 15 years. Seventy-nine homicides is the highest count since the mid-1990s, an era when the city earned the grim moniker “Murderapolis.”

It’s a damning indictment of systemic racism that every city in this country with a significant black population has a nickname referring to wanton violence.

A city employee fell victim to south Minneapolis carjackers in September, authorities said. Police found her abandoned vehicle only after it later crashed and caught on fire.

I can relate. A couple of teens stole my neighbor’s minivan and rammed it into a telephone poll after a police pursuit across two cities. I’ve never quite figured out what it is about teens that makes them so keen on this behavior, though.

Should citizens find themselves targeted, law enforcement advised that sometimes it’s better to hand over material goods rather than risk your own safety.

“People need to know what their abilities are,” Elder said. “A 74-year-old woman trying to duke it out with two 18-year-olds is not a great idea.”

Here’s another situation that should’ve been handled by community mediators instead of trigger-happy cops.

The spree comes amid a nearly unprecedented spike in violent crime, particularly shootings, since the May 25 killing of George Floyd in police custody and the civil unrest that followed.

There seems to be a significant disparity between what the peaceful protesters demanded and what’s actually happening. Yet more evidence of systemic racism.

Two boys, thought to be juveniles, got out of the car and approached a woman sitting in her SUV. A bystander captured a dramatic image of the suspects as one raised a gun toward her head. “Get out, get out!” they yelled, according to home surveillance audio obtained by the Star Tribune.

“Despite holding up photos of her young children and pleading for her life, two young men shot her car and the driver’s side window three times,” Higgins Victor recounted Tuesday in an e-mail to the Minneapolis City Council. “By the grace of God, she was not physically harmed.”

That’s for sure. Teens are famed for their marksmanship.

Such attacks hit “too close to home,” said Rick Reuter, who was born and raised in south Minneapolis. “She was extremely lucky.”

His wife, Alicia Reuter, said the shooting makes her fearful about doing basic tasks like getting gas, even during the day.

“I am unsettled by the acceptance that carjacking and attempted murder is being normalized as a new way of life in our city,” Higgins Victor wrote. “Police are gone. Criminals are emboldened. City leaders are not working toward common goals.”

Working towards common goals. There was considerable solace to be found in meaningless platitudes but now it’s been replaced by frustration. I’ve been told that the expectation of receiving functional services in exchange for paying taxes is a hallmark of white privilege. That’s probably what this Higgins guy has going on.

Anyways, someday we’ll figure it all out. Or, probably the Somalis will. It’s a good thing Biden is going to step up those importation numbers. In the long run, Minneapolis has a future as bright as those flames you could see from space!