“We all have to be brave” (Minneapolis resident Stella Carlson)
A huge reason why Team Trump is scrambling to cover their butts in a PR war they’ve already lost BUT keep doing what they’ve been doing is cell phone recordings of their agents engaged in their thuggery. Which as you know has resulted in death. The video of Renee Good’s killing is short. Well under a minute. Worse, there’s a crucial thirty seconds, that of her trying to pull out of her parking spot and lurching to an awkward stop that gets omitted. However, with the killing of Alex Pretti there are multiple and much longer videos. Crucially, there is plenty of footage of what happened BEFORE that first agent started pushing him backwards.
That my friends has made all the difference. Think about all the videos you’ve seen in the past. Videos of LE shooting someone, somewhere. Almost all the time there’s little to no footage of the minute(s) before deadly force is used. That allows LE to claim there is ‘lacking context’ and that matters. Even though their own body cams (assuming they were activated when they should have been) contradict claims about a situation turning ‘threatening’ in ‘an instant’ they get tons of time, often until a trial (assuming there is one) to paint a false picture. Add in people who decide to play amateur filmmaker and pan around to get crowd reactions and it’s easy to see why LE, from local to the feds keep getting away with unjustified use of force. Including DEADLY Force.
Now think about that five minutes of Derick Chauvin literally choking the life out of George Floyd, casually using his knee to press his weight down on Floyd’s neck. A brave young woman kept her composure, and didn’t try to get creative by playing amateur movie director. She kept the focus exactly where it needed to be – on the police officer murdering a man he knew had only been accused of possibly passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. It was her steady hand and her decision to keep the camera focused on the cop/killer and his victim that made all the difference.
It took courage for that young woman to do what she did. She feared, and with good reason one of the other cops present might realize what she was doing could be a ‘problem’ down the road and arrest her. Maybe even that like Floyd she’d wind up face down with the life being choked out of HER. That’s why this article from CNN about Stella Carlson who shot the video that truly gave context to the killing of Alex Pretti matters. Carlson showed and has kept showing admirable bravery. She’s gone on the record and shown her face on camera in an interview with Anderson Cooper. Carlson has in effect pinned a target on her own back. She knows MAGAs will be coming after her, perhaps even literally gunning for her. She knows Team Trump will investigate her and try to tear apart her life.
THAT my friends is what courage looks like. An ordinary person who kept a steady hand, somehow sensing that federal agents still jacked up on adrenaline from an earlier scuffle might find another person to roust. And they did. A tall, slim young man holding a cell phone was recording. He brought more attention to himself by doing a little directing of traffic. We’ve learned he was a quiet man, but holding out his cell phone and being tall he stood out. The agents couldn’t have know what he might already have recorded but for damned sure they didn’t like him doing what he was doing and decided to try and bully him into stopping.
Maybe they even hoped to provoke a reaction that would give them a reason to detain him and confiscate his phone. Tragically, instead of him just being detained he was shot and killed. AND they confiscated Pretti’s phone. That suckers memory was wiped clean before nightfall. That we can be sure of. However Pretti wasn’t the only person recording that day. There are multiple videos from different angles, including one from inside that white car agents threw Pretti down in front of. However it was Carson’s video in particular that made such a difference. It was MINUTES long, and crucial minutes before the physical confrontation began.
Then, when the first agent approached Pretti like the young woman who recorded the murder of George Floyd she kept focusing on what mattered. THAT is an important thing to take from this. Once again someone who had every reason to fear they might be next stood their ground, a bit away from the action and with a steady hand recorded it all. No panning around to get crowd reactions and so forth. Just focus on a person being killed by people with badges.
There’s another, equally important lesson to learn from this. If you think things might get ugly don’t “wait for the sh*t go down” to break out your cell phone and start recording. How many times have we seen people fumbling with their phone when the bad stuff was already underway? Hey, I get there’s only so much memory on a cell phone but if you record stuff that turns out to be nothing, well, that’s what the ‘delete video’ function is for!
Activists who are like the people of Minneapolis out there monitoring what federal agents are doing usually have their phones with them. Whether there or in other places the lesson ladies and gentlemen is not to wait. If you THINK something seems like it will escalate then start filming. If, like in Minneapolis you have others around who are doing the same, someone should take charge and divvy up who will record what/where. Organization can go further. Activists can form a box/perimeter and ensure video is taken from multiple angles.
The LAST thing DHS wants (or any other agency that wants to be able to cover its ass) is for CONTEXT. That’s why it’s so important to NOT wait to start recording. And to keep the focus on the actual interaction between agents/LE and the person(s) they are confronting. In the linked article Carlson recounts how she came to a realization she needed to be proactive on behalf of her community. She knew there were risks, especially after what happened to Nicole Good. Yet she made a measured decision to get involved, and do what she could. She decided the risk was worth it, and like I said her bravery extended to going on the record and allowing her name and face to be plastered on CNN. I have no doubt she’d do it again, but she also credits others:
Had she not experienced the way that her community has come together since federal law enforcement began surging in Minneapolis, Carlson said she does not know whether she would have stayed at the scene as long as she did.
“If it wasn’t for the collective actions over the past three weeks, I don’t know if I would have been able to stay that long,” she said. “But I knew that this was a moment, and we all have to be brave and we all have to take risks, and we’re all going to be given moments to make that decision.
Carlson continued: “… And I’m grateful to myself and I’m grateful to anybody who was supportive to me after, to make sure I could get to safety and get that video uploaded to the right people.”
I’ve made some suggestions and I’d like to make one more. I freely admit to limited tech savvy. I can’t sing anything like I once could. Certainly not to the level I was when I was part of the Marjorie Lawrence Opera Theater back at SIU-Carbondale decades ago. But I can still sing ok and tried to record a video of me singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas on my iPhone and post it on my FB page. Couldn’t figure out out to transfer the video! So for me live streaming would be like me (I’m disabled) trying to run over an NFL linebacker. Still, most folks are better at this stuff than me. Perhaps they can live stream their recordings to the Cloud? It can always be deleted if it turns out to be a nothingburger.
Anyway, we should be grateful we have people like Stella Carlson and so many others out there will to risk beating, arrest or even worse from Trump’s Storm Trooper THUGS. They are talking a good game about dialing things down in Minneapolis but I saw a pundit on TV earlier say there’s no evidence today they are doing so. I’m reminded of Rachael Maddow’s admonition “Don’t watch what they say, watch what they DO” so keep that in mind in the days ahead.
Shipping Bovino back off to California is all well and good but if DHS keeps on doing what it’s been doing that just Trump making a show, creating a distraction throwing Bovino under the bus but out of the other side of his fat mouth ordering Homan to keep up the pressure. Well, Minnesotans I believe are ready to keep resisting. Today a third No Kings protest has been announced and while the second one was way bigger than the first (which was plenty big) one can only imagine how huge number three will be.
In the meantime, wherever you are be ready to, if you see something that leads you to believe people with badges are amping themselves up to abuse their power/authority start recording. Don’t wait. And keep your focus on them and their target.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
There is also an important lesson to be learned from the video taken by someone the week before Prettis death that shows a man purported to be Pretti spitting at agents and kicking/damaging government property. Maybe it was then that he put himself on the LE radar so the next time they crossed paths the agents were not going to be caught off guard again. I’m not saying that Pretti deserved to die that day but let’s not pretend that he was just some quiet man walking around minding his own business. He put himself on LE radar by being an agitator and paid with his life. Goode was also an agitator who actively interfered with federal law enforcement actions and paid with her life. Maybe she should have went to work instead. And George Floyd was trash long before he passed counterfeit money. His death was directly caused by his own actions that day. Fact.
All of these cases didn’t deserve to die but their actions brought about their own demise.
Riiight.
So the penalty for rudeness is death?
The penalty for exercising your First and Second Amendment rights is death?
The penalty for not being a republican is death?
Where did you people come from?
The side of the f*ckwits who think might is right and there is no constitution have already killed more than the side saying rights are real.
What will happen when we stop playing nice against you morons.
Obviously I fully expected ignorant responses like yours. I never said that the penalty for rudeness & exercising rights is death. I in fact stated repeatedly that those cases I mentioned didn’t deserve to die! However their actions led directly to their death.
Us normal people who voted for rule of law come from all over the country! This hardly looks like you playing nice but if your side were to escalate I’d bet on my side all day.