Brooklyn Center, MN – On April 29, a career fair organized by Hennepin County at the quiet Brookdale Library became the scene of a successful action against the presence of U.S. military recruiters in communities. Roughly a dozen activists from the MN Anti-War Committee and the anti-war veterans’ organization About Face disrupted the fair with the demand that recruiters for both the U.S Army and the Minnesota Army National Guard leave immediately. 

Protesters began by inconspicuously entering the fair before unfurling a banner reading “Recruiters out – stop the war” and taking the floor to speak and chant against the military personnel present, refusing to leave until the recruiters did.

“We’re protesting the presence of U.S military recruiters at this career fair,” said AWC member Wyatt Miller. “These people are preying on our communities. They are preying on people’s basic needs like employment and healthcare and education.”

Miller continued, “U.S. massacres in Iran are launched from the same bases where the U.S. military staged its many wars and occupations in neighboring Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands. Most people want the U.S. military presence in the Middle East to end once and for all.”

The recruiters simply packed up and left within minutes of the protest beginning. With further chants of “Recruiters out! Stop the war!” “No justice, no peace!” and “U.S. out of the Middle East,” protesters followed them to the parking lot to ensure they had actually left before dispersing. No arrests were made.

In a time of economic hardship, tens of thousands of Americans are looking for work, and the military-industrial complex is happy to prey on those people. Recruiters for the armed forces are a common sight at job fairs across the country. Making sales pitches about travel, education, healthcare and career opportunities, recruiters seek to entice people into a career with the military.

Contrary to the popular view that the National Guard doesn’t deploy outside U.S. borders, at least 250 Minnesota National Guard soldiers, from 58 communities across the state, are currently deployed in the Middle East. Such deployments are not new. The U.S. military’s newspaper Stars and Stripes reported in February 2024 that 550 Minnesota National Guard soldiers were being deployed to the Middle East. That same division, nicknamed the “Red Bulls”, was also deployed in Kuwait in 2018-19, and Iraq in 2009-10. 

As the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran have continued, and a combination of American threats and Israeli aggression in Lebanon have damaged the prospects of a negotiated end to the war, concern has grown about the possibility of U.S. “boots on the ground” in Iran.

 A statement from the MN Anti-War Committee says, “American soldiers have murdered thousands of Iranian civilians, including the hundreds of children killed at the Minab girls’ school on February 28, potentially the largest massacre committed by U.S. forces since the 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war. U.S. troops have bombed other Iranian civilian infrastructure like hospitals, power plants, bridges and water treatment facilities. These are all war crimes under international law.”

The statement continued, “U.S. military recruiters prey on our communities to make these crimes possible.”

This successful action highlighted the opportunities that are available for activists to target the areas in which the U.S military-industrial complex intrudes upon communities.

#BrooklynCenterMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #MNAWC

Brooklyn Center, MN – As of April 15, there have been five days and nights of protests, vigils, press conferences, city council scrambling, firings and resignations – as well as outright battles between protesters and the law enforcement bodies from around the state that converged here after the killing of 20-year-old Daunte Wright.

The community actions by local grassroots movements have continued to pour out after the murder of Wright by former Brooklyn Center Police Department Officer Kim Potter, with some small victories.

On Sunday, April 11, Daunte Wright was pulled over by officer Kim Potter for an expired license plate. Daunte then called his mother asking for insurance information. Then the officer comes and orders Daunte to hang up the call and to get out of the car. Daunte asks, “For what?” and the officer responds “I’ll tell you when you get out of the car.” Officer Kim Potter, accompanied by two other officers, then attempted to handcuff him. Their reason was due to his hanging an air freshener in the rearview mirror of his car. Daunte understandably panics and tries to get back in the car. Potter then yells, “Taser, taser, taser!” and pulls out a handgun and shoots him dead.

This brutality sparked more protests, bringing hundreds of people from across the Twin Cities area to protest that night, the next four days, and into the foreseeable future.

While the people forced the Brooklyn Center police to stand down (the city of Brooklyn Center ordered them to not overtly fight the protesters) the state forces were poised to squelch the people’s rights to assembly and speech.

The so-called Operation Safety Net, put in place by the government to prepare against the people’s rage over the Floyd trial, was implemented early in the wake of Wright’s murder. On April 12, Governor Tim Walz declared a 7 p.m. curfew in the Twin Cities metro area. The city of Minneapolis declared their bought-and-paid-for groups of “Street Navigators” specifically exempt from the curfew; some of members of those groups actively disrupted speakers at protests. Also, hundreds of forces – ranging from the National Guard to Minnesota state patrol, Department of Natural Resources (DNR), county sheriffs, and on down to neighboring police departments – stood in formation against protesters. These authorities have been relentless in repressing the natural and righteous outrage of the protesters.

Despite the obstacles thrown by the Twin Cities’ governments towards the grassroots activists, such as imposing curfews and calling the Minnesota National Guard, there have already been some victories in pursuit of justice. On April 14, after pressure from multiple grassroots community activists and organizations, as well as from media coverage from across the world, officer Kim Potter was charged with second-degree manslaughter, although activists are calling for the charges to be increased.

In addition, the pressure has forced the dismissal of former Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey, and the resignation of former Chief of Police Tim Gannon.

At the legislative level, bills written and pushed by anti-police crimes groups under the umbrella Minnesota Justice Coalition were given hearings this week, after months of being denied.

This murder occurs in the wake of the first trial of officer Derek Chauvin, the cop who murdered George Floyd in June 2020. Local activists point out that the repeated offences from the multiple police departments across the Twin Cities area indicate a larger problem with the police departments themselves.

The Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar, or TCC4J, is one of the grassroots organizations which has been actively fighting for community control of police since the police murder of Jamar Clark in November 2015. They just launched a petition drive to change the Minneapolis city charter so the community can exert some control over choosing the chief of police and holding officers with cases of brutality accountable – a Civilian Police Accountability Commission, or CPAC for short.

Besides keeping up the fight for justice for Daunte Wright, the MN Justice Coalition and dozens of other groups will protest in downtown Minneapolis on April 19, 5 p.m. That is when closing arguments in the Derek Chauvin trial are expected to be over, and the case for the murder of George Floyd goes to the jury.

#BrooklynCenterMN #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #DaunteWright

Brooklyn Center, MN – More than 1500 rallied in front of the police station on the evening of April 12, demanding justice for Daunte Wright, a young Black man murdered by police. Authorities, fearing another rebellion, have deployed the National Guard to the area, declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in three Twin Cities metro area counties.

#BrooklynCenterMN #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #DaunteWright

Brooklyn Center, MN – Protesters gathered outside the new headquarters of the FBI here, Feb. 17, to protest the agency’s targeting of anti-war and international solidarity activists. The protest coincided with the FBI’s announced move-in day to their new fortress-like building.

Participants in the protest included peace activists whose homes were raided by the FBI Sept. 24, 2010.

“The FBI is waging a war on civil liberties,” said Jess Sundin of the MN Committee to Stop FBI Repression. “We are here today to send a message: ‘Opposing U.S. wars is not a crime.’ We will not be silenced or intimidated by the FBI.”

The FBI, along with U.S. Attorneys in Chicago and Minneapolis, are trying to make a case for indicting the activists on ‘material support for terrorism’ charges. To that end, a grand jury is meeting in Chicago. Barry Jonas, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, recently stated that the investigation will continue.

As part of the same investigation, the FBI manufactured charges against longtime Chicano activist Carlos Montes in Los Angeles.

The new FBI Field office, located at 1501 Freeway Boulevard, cost about $64 million to build. About 300 agents and support staff will work in the building. The jurisdiction covered by the new headquarters extends to North and South Dakota.

The Minneapolis Field office has a long history of trampling on democratic rights. In the 1950s its agents hounded communists in the labor movement. In the early 70s, the office was pivotal in the federal government’s attempt to destroy the American Indian Movement. Over the past ten years the office has carried out a campaign against the Somali community which includes a massive spying program and arrests for material support for terrorism.

For many years the Minneapolis FBI office was the base of operations for Nicholas O'Hara, an infamous former FBI supervisor who has made it his life’s work to keep Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier in jail.

Speaking in front of the new FBI complex, Jess Sundin stated, “The people inside this building are targeting those of us who speak up for peace and justice. That’s what the FBI does. They raided our homes and offices of the Anti War Committee. The FBI thinks it’s a crime to stand in solidarity with people around the world, who are struggling to be free. It not a crime to stand in solidarity with the people of the Middle East or Latin America, or anywhere else. It’s the right thing to do.”

#BrooklynCenterMN #FBI #September24FBIRaids #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression