Biden signs an executive order today with the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd family.
I am still working on my now book length memoir!… Honoring George Floyd and my friend who has recently passed. Writing a book nearly by oneself is no small task. Below is the first chapter from the working draft I have today to be finished and completely…
The first chapter of The pigs in the garden… (TW: traumatic content)
On Monday, May 25th, 2020, a Black youth filmed while George Floyd was extrajudicially killed, lynched, by pigs in the streets, and other pigs looked on. He cried out for his dead mother and said he couldn’t breathe. He knew he was going to die. A sensationalized and historic event that nobody wants to see happen again. (but we have…)
People around watched the traumatic event as the pig and know white supremacist of the community pressed his knee into George Floyd’s neck. Three other pigs held him down while one pig looked on for over 9 minutes; something this killer pig had done before and would later plead guilty to hate crimes for. The pig was sentenced to 22.5 years (and 25 years concurrently in their federal plea). This killer pig will serve 15 in isolation, but with many amenities. Some describe it like a hotel.
Organizers called the city to report the lynching. The pigs had reported the lynching as a medical emergency. It was only through organizers, videos, and word of mouth that the information came out. Protesters in so-called minneapolis-st. paul, minnesota (on Indigenous Land) immediately took to the streets after finding out.
They clashed with local pigs at a local precinct. By Thursday, the pigs abandoned the precinct and protesters “burnt down” the precinct while chanting BLACK LIVES MATTER and GEORGE FLOYD.
Technically the precinct still stands today. Made of brick, there are signs of the bottom two floors being burnt out. The floors are now boarded up with metal, while the 3rd floor still has its regular windows.
Burning down something creates a different playing field and a Black Elder made this distinction to a group once in my presence. Now, it stands barricaded and unused in a haunting way. Across the street is the target store that was infamously looted along with other stores that first week.
Protesters did burn down several stores, some literally to the actual ground. Most of the destruction is on so-called lake street which traverses the twin cities from East to West. This street is fairly busy during rush hour. It seems a major thruway connecting the cities with a bridge over the Mississippi. Some say that businesses were just burnt down for insurance purposes, but this is just hear-say or what I heard from one Elder on the street.
Someone also once told me they infamously looted the target across from the precinct because the store refused to sell the protesters milk in bulk. Protesters commonly get milk to treat chemical irritants (though this is usually not recommended over saline or water for flushing eyes).
Many of those that took economic action or looted were also from out of town and taking advantage of the situation. I heard of people driving to get their “five finger discount” from as far away as so-called new york (on LenapeHoking Land). The pigs were occupied by the protests in the streets and the stores targeted mostly at night. The way it would go, as I saw it, was usually after protests were controlled & brutalized by the pigs and streets shutdown, people would go looting as a kind of “fuck you” to the system. The pigs were unable to stop it all.
There were tens of thousands of protesters and curfews set that first week or two. The national guard pigs would eventually be called in. The pigs were becoming overwhelmed and could not respond to multiple calls across the twin cities.
Some locals also described the direct action the night the precinct was burnt, as spurred on by a known white supremacist or yt people in the crowd. A boogaloo boi from texas later pled guilty to shooting up the precinct with protesters inside (as charged by the pigs). He was sentenced to 52 months in prison and three years probation. He also was ordered to pay back $12 million restitution.
Many see this narrative as a way to discredit and take away from Black Power. They feel that it was more of a crowd decision; an energetic decision. One that you had to be there to understand. I was not there, and I speak as an outsider that learned about all this after the fact…
- - -
In so-called seattle (on stolen Duwamish and Coast Salish Land), anarchist began to organize during the week following George Floyd’s lynching, and on that Friday took to the streets. The group of young anarchists in black bloc broke into and took property mainly focusing on scamazon, starsucks, and big department stores. The young anarchists were the first to take to the streets. The destruction along with videos of them taking a cheesecake from a downtown cheesecake factory made sensationalized news.
The city being the home of infamous world trade organization protests or wto protests of 1999, pigs in the city train in rigorous crowd control and even train other forces across Turtle Island. The pigs responded to the anarchists that day, but the action continued the sensational news cycle in the local area. It sparked a much-much-much-much larger protest the next day. A historic event…
- - -
I came into the uprising fold that Friday evening after the protests in the local area went viral. Mainly, the looting & destruction covered on a sensationalized news cycle caught the attention of thousands in the area and me. Social media erupted in a momentous energy calling for Revolution &and Justice. I quickly got up to speed…
On Saturday, I showed up having learned about it late and watched the gruesome public lynching video. This would come to be known by most in the local protest community as “Day One” somewhat discounting the actions of anarchists that raised awareness the day before and what happened leading up to Friday elsewhere.
People rallied at the downtown park often historically used for rallies & protests; the same space protesters rallied for Black Lives not black friday years before. There was something in the air much different though...
The energy was electrifying and empowering. There were thousands upon thousands of people. Estimates are in the tens of thousands. It was a sea of people like something I’ve never witnessed before. People with signs lined the street. The public townsquare was overflowing with mostly yt liberals. People were angry and even more had seemingly “woken up”.
The pigs seemed shocked & overwhelmed logistically and emotionally. The power of the people was on show. People were in their faces shouting at them. I had never seen this before. The group was so big that it would get split up into two groups and each would still fill several city blocks.
At one point, pigs were kettled. Protesters didn’t know what to do and a Black pig shouted “Get Back!” I leaned in closer a bit in an aggressive posturing move at that moment in the crowd taking a false step feeling empowered by the crowd, but not fully understanding my actions from the start, or understanding crowd dynamics, or fully committed.
I saw a yt protester swing at a pig and get maced, but no one was overtly hurt. Several people danced in the flash bangs the pigs threw shortly thereafter escalating things and seemingly to control the crowd or break it up because it was too big for them to control or stop from marching with their position.
Then the crowd split. One group moved West while I followed a group South. The pigs being positioned on the North and East of the intersection.
A crowd stayed downtown and one angry actor began burning pig vehicles with an aerosol can and a lighter. Later they would be caught because of a missing persons report filed in another state that described their tattoos, social media accounts, and matching clothing. And they would plea guilty and be sentenced to 5 years in prison and three years on suspended release; publicly apologize and be liable for restitution.
One person even grabbed a gun from a pig’s vehicle to be taken down by an off-duty security guard in the crowd instantly before any shots were fired.
At the time, I didn’t even know this was unfolding downtown. The march I was in was much more peaceful. We walked up a hill and onto the highway.
We entered the interstate highway and marched North against traffic on the Southbound side. A state patrol pig got caught on the highway and everybody on the highway stopped for us. As protesters started to surround the pig’s standard suv. The pig put their lights on and squealed their siren in an attempt to try to get protesters away from surrounding their vehicle.
Several protesters walked around the pigs vehicle, but instead of continuing down the highway, we actually exited the interstate. The crowd actually in unity deesculated the situation. The pig would have surely been surrounded had protesters marched on and was outnumbered many thousand to one. Protesters diverted onto a multilane offramp and got off the highway near the pig administrative headquarters.
At this point I felt we could basically do what we wanted with our numbers and was even brazen enough to proclaim that to a Black protester saying, “We can basically do anything we want!” with a bit of a mischievous smile on my face.
The protesters continued marching and chanting until we made it to the local pig headquarters near the city hall and government building district.
We rallied and chanted outside the pig headquarters until some protesters threw a firework and a few items like rocks and water bottles at the pigs. Then they rolled tear gas canisters down the hill at us from high ground a block away.
After which, a small group wearing blac bloc squared off with the pigs throwing back the canisters in gas masks and trying to hold their ground. The majority of the crowd dispersed almost instantly as to not breathe in the gas and began marching again…
- - -
I saw one of my Black exes in this moment in the crowd. We made eye contact, but I never saw her again…
Later, I would meet one of the blac bloc clad activist and protesters on the streets. A homeless, angry addict with a troubled past and history of rebelling radically in both the wto and the Occupy Protests. He bragged about the event and wanted to fight people. Living on the streets and paired with another protester that grew up with a pig as a dad and suffered mentally for it. I came to know them somewhat in my organizing & protesting on the street. I tried to help, but ended up creating an unhealthy situation when I bought shellfish in that someone on the street sold me. One of the campers got very ill. I tried to buy the other camper a truck, but he flaked and later burnt down his own tent. He smoked heavy amounts of weed.
- - -
The group I was in marched towards the East precinct while continuing to chant. We were greeted with a wall of pigs that wouldn’t let us march past the precinct. We chanted for some time, and then broke off to march through the streets whether it was because of the tear gas or on our own choice. I don’t remember. Mostly, they tear gassed us. Especially those first few nights, so much so that the public would pressure the mayor to write an executive order preventing them from continuing to tear gas the city (and us). The city looked surreal and war like most nights with tear gas and munition’s smoke. Residents complained it entered their apartments and greatly affected them.
Those first few nights of protesting following George Floyd’s lynching are well documented and can be viewed all across Mother Earth and Turtle Island. That is why this movement and period of time has been coined the George Floyd Uprising.
- - -
Later, that first night pigs on bikes harassed us to get onto the sidewalk when our numbers dwindled to about 50 people at night in the downtown core. Then a few of us stopped and squared off with them. They peeled off in their bikes after we shouted at them and got in their faces.
We protested all night until about 4am while cars (presumptuously from the street racing community) bumped “Fuck donald trump!” We mobbed through the streets with them up one of the city’s biggest hills towards the east precinct again. Where for the last time, we came back to what would become known as the barricade. All the cars peeling off just before, effectively ending the protest for the night as our numbers were thin and the sun was just starting to come up.
- - -
The next day, Sunday, I didn’t think anything was actually going to happen. I didn’t think anybody was going to come into the streets. I checked twitter, checked online, and noticed people were still massively engaged online. There were many streams going. People were taking to the streets. Ten of thousands of people were watching the live streams online. Money seemed to be pouring in, too.
I showed up day after day and continued to protest all night long. The protests would be peaceful (but intense) for hours with lots of taunting, mocking, ridicule, and yelling at pigs followed by someone usually throwing a water bottle or something similarly small happening. Then the crowd would be declared a riot and tear gassed. The crowd would then break up or be pushed back down the hill, and march through the downtown streets usually rally back up the hill at the barricade once again often with fewer numbers. Some of the first nights they would implement a curfew, everybody’s phone would buzz with an emergency message, and the crowd would chant back, “Fuck your curfew!” with barely anybody going anywhere. The front line was intense with people mostly in blac bloc having masks, umbrellas, and gear.
Infamously one pig ripped a pink umbrella out of a protesters hand who was standing behind a fence on the front line and reaching, causing a series of events that ended up in tear gas being deployed. This would come to be called umbrella gate and an Asian pig would end up suing the department after they used him as a scapegoat for this incident.
A woman was also shot directly in the chest with a flash grenade stopping her heart. When protesters called for services, the pigs can be heard in the public record refusing services because she was a protester. The medics had to drive her to the hospital and the doctor said she died four times before they were able to revive her. People would get umbrella tattoos and the pink umbrella would be used as a symbol for collectives after this.
Eventually, the pigs got sick of the rather peaceful verbal aggression and the locals began to turn against them because of their tear gas use and brutality. They finally realized they needed to create distance, so they backed up behind bright industrial light generators and barricades yelling orders from a loudspeaker the whole time.
The national guard pigs were also called out to the city, but also began to tire. They didn’t seem to like working with the local pigs or being there to quarrel with the protesters. This went on for several days…
- - -
On the Wednesday before the barricade fell, I meditated. I decided to sit in a mediation position in the frontline, but not the frontline where the action was more intense, but the front line that was behind the precinct, on the higher ground on the backside of the barricade. I sat there. For some reason the protesters had mostly picked the low, yet more public ground to protest at near the park. I was on a little bit of a hill with a bicycle fence separating me and the local pigs backed by the national guard pigs.
During the marches before we had laid in the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds (for what we thought at the time was how long Geroge Floyd was held down) later to be corrected to a longer 9 minutes and 29 seconds. I had also seen the current yt mayor make a fool of herself. Address the crowd with her white privilege on her mayoral sleeves and throw her tone deafness into the mix in front of protesters that had completely filled the hillside in front of a fire station. She would later opt to not run for reelection.
We marched in the streets mostly peacefully. There were a lot of calls to let Black men and Women express their anger how they would like: including property destruction. There was also a lot of money and venmos being tossed around.
So, I was there meditating on Wednesday with my hands in my lap. I had glasses on, I had taken them off and closed my eyes. I have somewhat poor uncorrected vision, so I can’t see very well without them. Some protesters had given me a water bottle and laid swim goggles next to me for tear gas or pepper spray. I wasn’t concerned about chemical agents at the time, but I welcomed the water. There seemed to always be water bottles around to stay hydrated in the mass protests, and inevitably some would get thrown at pigs.
I was in kind of a trace as I meditated. I had been sitting for an hour or so. I was seeing how long I could sit there for. The pigs would let cars through and ask us to move. At one point I scooted closer after they asked me to move for a vehicle coming through. They seemed to really disliked that. I could tell from their facial expressions and body language. One Black protesters near me held a sign that read, “KKKops”.
At one point, I reached down to feel for my glasses. I managed to accidentally touch the water bottle instead. It tipped over so that it proceeded to roll downhill. As I reached out to grab it, it was just out of reach and instead I managed to flick it. I sent it faster under the bicycle fence to the pigs feet on the other side.
The pig behind the line picked it up and without saying anything underhanded it to me. I didn’t get a good look at it coming because I still hadn’t had the time to put on my glasses. I then made a split decision to let my hands go away from protecting myself and let the full water bottle strike me in the face.
This was my protest. In an ironic kong of way, I let it strike me. It struck me on the cheek and chin hitting my folded legs in the thigh and rolling back under the fence. The pig said, “What! You Don’t want your waterbottle?!!” and another protester said “Here, I will hand it to him” and handed me the water bottle.
When I went to put on my glasses a little later, I could tell some pigs had looks on their faces. The whole time I was quite euphoric from meditating for an extended period of time and felt no pain though I could feel the energy of the impact on my face for some time.
It became a talking point of the protesters around after that. Protesters asking pigs if they wanted water and said, “Don’t worry we’ll hand it to you!”
Then I decided to lie facedown on the ground with my hands behind my back in the position George Floyd died in to see how long I could hold that position. I did that for some time, and that is when I came to the realization I could hold that position for a while…
- - -
The next day, Thursday, I walked from the southend of the city towards the east precinct happening upon a youth march where I saw a youth leader take the microphone. The youth tried to spell out BLACK LIVES MATTER for the helicopter with their bodies; that’s how big the march was. They were the size of an inner city high school. I never saw the picture. I think unfortunately the trees obscured it for a great photo op.
I chugged several water bottles to over hydrate myself. And in my warmest clothing while still displaying a gray hoodie and jeans, I laid down on the street near a manhole on an even quieter entrance to the South of the wall people had just been walking by. I cuffed my hands behind my back and put on a surgical mask. I laid down with every intention not to speak to anyone like I was dead. I had the handcuff key on my key chain around my hip, and turned my head away from the pigs. I ended up laying there for 6 hours from 6 pm till midnight and talking soon after laying down when people asked me questions.
I considered it a performance art piece at first, but at one point early on, a protester that sounded like a BIPOC youth asked to put the handcuffs on, and I obliged verbally. At that point, I didn’t know how long I could hold the position. I started to get up, and they told me "No bro. Stay down." I took it as a sign that what I had just entered into was powerful. Another person called it a die-in. I realized that this was nothing new at that point and not "performance art". I believe there is a tremendous power in a single person or a small number of protesters doing a die-in or using their body in a more rigid way.
Throughout the course of the 6 hours I laid there, people came up and helped me. The pigs came over to look closer a few hours in. Asking if I was okay, and saying someone needs to be checking in on me. Someone said yeah, he’s fine in a stern tone while surrounding me. People were protecting me. I asked for water and ibuprofen. Someone tried to slip me a pill, but it didn’t work. Someone offered to even give me a shoulder rub. I declined until after, but they didn’t stick around. People asked to take my picture. A guy that spoke in an accent ran around all the pigs holding a line with a big black dildo telling the pigs, “No black dick for you!” in an African accent. He stopped by me twice.
When I eventually got up at midnight, I was surrounded by flowers. I got up slowly. After 6 hours, most of it spent flexing against the cuffs to hold the position, I was in physical pain. I had someone unlock the handcuffs. (I didn’t even know you could double lock handcuffs at that time.)
As they helped me out of them I said "Slow, slow". Then I lowered my hands and arms slowly to the cold concrete to push myself up. I was dazed and euphoric in a weird way. I was starting to get cold. My shoulder hurt and would for many weeks after. Somebody shouted at the pigs, George Floyd didn’t get to get up taking the words out of my mouth. I think my action was effective. I think it wore down the morale of the pigs effectively. I was there until a lot of protesters left. It was eerie and real.
As I collected my things, someone asked me if I wanted to say something. I said "No, I think I will leave it at that." I walked away to catch one of the last the light rail home. Someone had already shouted what I want to say. My action had spoken for itself, albeit it was entered in a somewhat performative way. I would come to understand better with time that I was often seeking performance and novelty while protesting.
At the light rail station, I wrapped myself in the emergency blanket I had brought, and I began to sob uncontrollably. I felt a part of the vulnerability that George Floyd was in. The position of having your handcuffed behind your back with your chest and face on the ground is one of such disadvantaged. Protesting like that really validated for me why protesters were there and how George Floyd's murder was indeed a public lynching. The pig knelt on him with one hand in his pocket.
- - -
The next day, I put a megaphone at the line in the early part of the day when there were few people present. Someone has a good picture of someone in a wheelchair with the megaphone next to them. Then I went home and watched everything online to get a good perspective and rest. I wanted to see what online protesters were seeing. The numbers were in the tens of thousands of viewers.
- - -
The night after, while the chief pig carmen best was on the line. I managed to serendipitously show up holding a hundred unbound dollar bills marked with FTP and waving them loosely on the front line. I wanted to intimidate the pigs with the potential chaos of letting them go while they stood there in riot gear. Defunding the pigs was a huge talking point of protesters.
The frontline ended up feeling much more intense than ever. A Black Female protester asked me if I was giving away the money, I said sure and handed it to her. Then ducked out of the front line. With the money gone from the pigs sight in a few seconds, I then left. In the few days I had been protesting away from the frontline, it had become so much more intense. I was not equipped or prepared for how intense the front line had become. Almost everybody on the front line had google, masks, shields or umbrellas, and I still felt I was recovering physically and emotionally from my die-in protest.
- - -
That Sunday, Dan Gregory was shot. I learned about it on twitter. Someone drove into the crowd at high speed which can be seen on video with a pistol that had two clips taped together. Someone moved and held a fence in front of the car and stopped it from running into the crowd. With the car still in motion and the driver still trying to move it with his foot on the pedal, Dan Gregory punched the driver after trying to wrestle the steering wheel out of his hands and was shot in the arm. The car would have likely mowed through the crowd had it not been for Dan Gregory and the other protester putting a barricade in front of the car to stop it, and the gunshots might have been more if Dan Gregory hadn’t punched the driver and been shot with the first bullet. The gun jammed after that. Dan Gregory is well over 6 and a half feet tall; an intimidating height and size. This event undoubtedly traumatized many. The gunman and driver just walked to the pigs after and was casually arrested supposedly saying something about his gun being jammed...
The driver, who many claim is a brother of a pig in the department, later said they were just trying to check out the protest on their way to work and got caught in the crowd (with a pistol laying on the passenger seat having two magazines taped together). They were charged with first-degree assault and let out on $150,000 bail with the trial yet to begin still. Dan Gregory and other protesters do not agree with this narrative.
- - -
There was also an incident the first day where pigs pepper sprayed a little girl, and a video early on showed a state pig saying “fuck them up” and gesturing with his riot baton. Tens of thousands of complaints to opa began pouring in overwhelmingly most of them were for the little girl. The opa would drag investigations for longer than a year and mostly say the pigs acted unjustly with little oversight when using force.
All this because they wouldn’t let us march past…
