Seriously, does the Minnesota State government have only ONE sign language interpreter?

I could have sworn that we saw video identified as the White Castle on fire, but it looks... fine? Maybe the building was misidentified. Or maybe it's just that hard to burn up a building made of stainless steel. 

One of the more terrifying pictures I took, although you have to think about it to realize it. This is Dave's old apartment building on the corner of Lake and Nicollet, adjacent to the Wells Fargo that was destroyed by fire. There are hundreds of apartments in that building, mostly occupied by Somali families. It's an okay building inside, but does not have the world's greatest fire exits. Note that every one of the shops on the lower level was broken open. All it would have taken was one well-placed Molotov cocktail and that building would have gone up in flames. 

And now for something completely different. On the way home I went past this remarkable yard art on Stevens Avenue around 39th Street. It's a little hard to see, but that's a dead parrot that the cat and dog are staring at in wonder. WTF?

After the horrifying events of Thursday night when rioters looted and burned an entire neighborhood, Governor Walz announced an 8 pm curfew and serious coordination began among the governor, the mayors, the state police, the National Guard, and the Fire Department. It sounded like a good plan, and was certainly better thought out than the night before, but ultimately it failed. There was apparently too much optimism about people voluntarily honoring the curfew and nowhere near enough of a police presence to actually enforce it. Protests were impassioned but peaceful during day, but when night fell the rioters came out and started burning and looting again.

This time the Fire Department was actively engaged (escorted by state troopers and National Guard) but there were hundreds of fires and they simply could not keep up. A lot of the National Guard was stationed in the downtown areas protecting the State Capitol and unspecified "critical infrastructure" in downtown Minneapolis, and I guess that worked since none of those things burned up.

But the MPD's Fifth Precinct Station became the hot spot of the night. This time the precinct station was not burned, but much of the neighborhood immediately around it went up in flames, and the Minneapolis Fire Department simply gave up on the area and let it burn. 
 
Full disclosure: I live 12 blocks from that station. The Wells Fargo Bank that was engulfed in flame? That's across the parking lot from the large apartment building where Dave Romm lived. I spent many many hours there after his death in 2017, cleaning out his apartment. I also spent quite a bit of time in that bank, closing out his accounts. There are hundreds of apartments in that building, mostly occupied by Somali immigrant families. The lower level of the building is full of small shops and service offices many of them serving mostly the Somali communities. The bank is one of the busiest bank branches I have ever seen, with a highly diverse clientele and many Somalis working there.  

The strip mall across the street held the Office Depot I shopped at frequently as well as restaurants and shops that serve the community. The neighborhood restaurants that are now burned or looted are the places Dave loved to eat. The historic White Castle across the street is one of the oldest buildings in the area, with a drive-through I have patronized more times than I want to admit. When my daughter's family is in town, it's the first place her husband wants to eat (they don't have White Castles in California, and apparently they have become legendary in places they don't exist). And of course that was my local post office at the corner of 31st.

On Saturday morning I cautiously biked up to the intersection to see what was left. The difference between night and day was like.... well the difference between night and day. There was a moderate sized crowd passionately but peacefully protesting outside the station with signs and chants. An apparently huge volunteer cleanup crew was just finishing up and leaving with their brooms when I arrived (at about 4pm). The sidewalks and streets were swept clean, with big piles of neatly bagged debris in the parking lot of what was left of the strip mall. 

From a distance, the Wells Fargo branch didn't look bad. The brick walls had withstood the fire, and the jaunty looking sign was still aloft. 

But when you went around to the back of the building, it becomes apparent that brick walls or not, all that is left inside is a gutted ruin.

You can't really see it, but that's the Fifth Precinct Station over there behind the protesting crowd. There is no visible police presence. Most people are wearing masks (remember the pandemic?) It's all very very well-behaved.

If you were glued to the streaming coverage of the carnage last night and wondered what that "building across from the Hibachi Grill" was... this is it. Or was it. This is what happens when you are NOT made of brick or stainless steel.and are engulfed in a hellish blazing riot. That guy in the foreground with his hands raised is not making some cryptic protest gesture - he is directing traffic. A small crew of volunteer traffic monitors had decided to close off a few of the blocks around the cleanup effort and were getting the final few vehicles out of the street. 

 I keep intending to post, but just can't keep up. Don't want to start a contentious discussion thread but would like to see more actual news on what is happening locally, so I should really do what I can to help with that. In my attempt to sort it all out I have been keeping a rough timeline of events in notes on my phone. I might as well document it here. I think most of my tiny following lives in the Twin Cities and knows what's going on as well as I do, but this might be helpful for the few out of towners. Some of this is put together retroactively and might have some errors. Corrections are welcome, but please don't yell at me about who is at fault for what. I'm just trying to sort out the sequence of events. It's all starting to run together in my head.