Just after 4 a.m. on December 20, over 600 police officers descended on our happy home. Code named "Operation Coldsnap," the raid on the Minnehaha Free State was the largest show of police force in Minnesota history. Seven buildings in the path of the proposed reroute of Highway 55 in southeastern Minneapolis had been occupied by activists since August. The raid resulted in 37 arrests and was followed by the fastest demolition job the city has ever seen. All of the houses were completely bulldozed and the foundations were filled in by daybreak. By mid-afternoon, after a light snow had fallen over the encampment, it looked like the occupation had never existed.
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Testimonials of Brutality "I watched as they filed people into the house, and many were badly injured and in so much pain they had trouble walking. They used pain compliance holds on people who could barely walk and others who were barely conscious. I saw another protester named Dr. Toxic so incapacitated that he fell unconscious twice, drooling and foaming at the mouth. While in the cop car I specifically remember hearing troopers discuss jokingly how they were disappointed that no one was fighting back and they wanted the opportunity to 'teach us a lesson.'" --Nightingale A. Byrde "They pull off my gas mask and use pain compliance holds to force my neck back. We see the pepper spray before they use it. They show us, really, laughing and jeering as they threaten us with it. One of them forces my eyes open as another one dips a gloved hand into the poison. Two covered fingers. They rub it into my open eyes. I have been trained in nonviolence. I stay quiet and calm, blinded but hearing the screams of my beaten partner. The pain is unbearable. I am forced to unlock. They put another pain hold on me and drag me like that, by the jaw, up the stairs. They throw me face-down onto the floor of a room in the house. They keep me there for a couple of minutes before putting another pain hold on me and dragging me out into the falling snow. I am wearing no jacket. I sit there for over an hour." --Nomad Soul "Within seconds, my lockdown partner and I heard the hissing of gas seeping into our room. We locked our arms into the cement and immediately began coughing, choking, crying and vomiting fluids. We unlocked and exited the room extremely cautiously to find a room full of men in black with gas masks and guns pointed at us. In jail I heard friends' horror stories of police behavior which amounted to unprovoked torture. I saw the bruises on a friend's legs and watched in anger as a nurse refused to see him. Another friend walked by the cell window, his face covered in blood. This was the most horrific night of my life." --anonymous "I told them that we were all nonviolent people while they dug their knees in the back of my neck and pulled my hair out of my head. I witnessed one man who recently had pepper spray rubbed in his eyes ignored while all the fluid in his body drained from his mouth, nose and eyes. I told the police that this man was in extreme pain and that he will need medical help, but they ignored my pleas and his. 'To serve and protect...' has recently been changed to 'search and destroy.'" --anonymous "After five cans of tear gas, I left my lockdown site and then was cuffed, kicked and pepper-sprayed. Once I was sprayed, I was carried out and my head was smashed all the way out. Once outside, I was sat down and the pepper spray was rubbed in my face. I was screaming "medic," and five minutes later a medic came and said there was nothing wrong, even though my head was bleeding and my hands had lost all feeling." --@spen "They refused to treat my severe asthma. If an attack had happened, I could've gone into a coma or even died. If they had sprayed me, I could've died." --Molly "As my wrists were bleeding and swollen from the handcuffs, I asked the officers to please change the cuffs and loosen them. They simply laughed and told me that I got what I deserved. The authorities came in with the intent to hurt people. I believe that if they had the chance they would've had no problem killing people. In fact they came horrifyingly close to killing the man who was sitting in the tripod. What I witnessed on Sunday was the most disgusting abuse of power I have ever seen." --Meaghan |
In addition to excessive numbers, police also used excessive force, confronting nonviolent protesters with laser-sighted automatic weapons and torturing them with pepper spray and tear gas. In some cases, an unknown pepper-spray-like gel was applied directly to their eyes. Activists locked down and in handcuffs were beaten and maced. One activist's nose was broken by an officer performing a pain compliance hold. The ceremonies of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota were brutally cut short and sacred items destaroyed. Once in jail, the detainees were denied medical attention and held incommunicado in solitary confinement for nearly 48 hours.
After a week of rumors, the raid came with a few hours warning. Our roving security team spotted a two-mile-long column of cars, trucks and buses entering a hangar at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, one mile south of the site. Our whistles blew as Ryder trucks pulled up in front of each house, disgorging masked, black-clad police wielding rifles and battering rams. It was immediately apparent the authorities knew right where each and every barricaded site and lock-down was, despite some having been built only two weeks prior. Police filled entire houses with tear gas, choking and nauseating the protesters whose arms were locked into barrels. Many unlocked voluntarily, only to be pepper-sprayed while trying to make their way out. Police also tipped over a tripod while a sitter was still on top and maced a man who was sitting on a roof.
In addition to brutalizing nonviolent Earth! First!ers, police assaulted elders of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota whose sacred land is in the path of the highway. A prayer ceremony was in progress around the sacred fire when the raid began.
The cops immediately extinguished the sacred fire that had burned for 133 days, and an unknown officer put his foot through the sacred drum. Other sacred items were broken and burned, and all who were taking part in the ceremony were arrested, including the tribal elders.
One of the most memorable moments occurred when Santa Claus came to visit this happy, ragged band of elves. Claus locked to the chimney atop one of the houses and, to the delight of caroling supporters across the street, held the police off for over three and a half hours before being arrested.
After all the activists had been removed, police built eight bonfires and proceeded to incinerate our personal belongings. The interiors of the houses were stripped, and everything was either packed into the Ryder trucks and confiscated or out-and-out cremated on the spot. Outgoing Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson made an appearance and gave his personal stamp of approval to the militant action, saying the now-tortured and hunger-striking arrestees were "not protestors... they're basically anarchists." The morning brought a vigil of over 200 Minneapolis residents streaming to the place where the houses once stood.
Three days later, Big Woods Earth First! held a press conference for local and national media. The protesters, who had been released on the condition that they "do nothing to impede the progress of Highway 55," spoke eloquently of their treatment at the hands of city and state police. Then, as a public statement, the speakers set fire to their conditional release statements.
Public sentiment has shifted even further in our favor, with many people understandably expressing concern over the police-state tone of the raid and subsequent denials by police and government that any unnecessary force was used. Adding insult to injury, on December 28, Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson bestowed the Chief's Award of Merit to three officers for their work in the planning and execution of the brutal raid.
On Christmas day we held a demonstration at the governor's mansion to remind the now ex-Governor Carlson of our presence and persistence. On January 4, a banner was hung from a statue during the gubernatorial inauguration of ex-pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura. The banner declared that we have no intention of letting this police action conquer our resistance to the needless routing of Highway 55 through the last wilderness area and the last cold spring in Minneapolis, a place whose name literally means "city of waters."
Soon after the raid we established a new base camp and a treesit a quarter mile south of the razed houses around a circle of four burr oaks held sacred by the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota. Despite constant surveillance and nighttime temperatures plunging 20 degrees below zero, we are maintaining a stand in the path of the road. As this article is being written, no treecutting or earthmoving has occurred anywhere along the proposed route.
Our days are marked by regular visits from local residents bringing food and gear and thanking us for our work. Our nights are spent singing campfire songs around a new sacred fire. We are filing a lawsuit against the agencies for their use of chemical warfare against unarmed, nonviolent protesters. We have made one thing clear to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the Minneapolis police and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety: Like the truckers' unions, whose 1934 strike brought on the previous largest police action in Minnesota; like the Dakota, who were executed in the largest mass hangings in US history during the Civil War; like the wilderness itself, we have a spirit that will never be broken!
We ask that concerned EF!ers contact Governor Jesse Ventura at State Capitol, 175 Constitutional Ave., St. Paul, MN 55155; (651) 296-3391, and tell him Minnesota isn't a cage match and suggest he cancel this overwhelmingly unpopular highway project. Contact police chief Robert Olson at 350 S. 5th St., Minneapolis, MN 55415; (612) 673-3383, the Hennepin County sheriff Patrick McGowan at 300 S. 6th St., Minneapolis, MN 55415; (612) 348-3744 and commissioner Don Davis at North Central Life Tower, 445 Minnesota St., Suite 1000, St. Paul, MN 55101; (651) 296-6642 and ask them what's up with this "pepper-gel" stuff, and why uniformed public servants beat a restrained man with their flashlights. Contact MnDOT Commissioner Elwin Tinklenberg at 395 John Ireland Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55155; (651) 296-3000, and ask him who in the hell really thinks paving a sacred site of inestimable environmental and cultural value is a good idea in the first place. We're always looking for more activists, you betcha! We're also seeking generous donations to assist with huge legal costs associated with the raid as well as to continue or action against Highway 55. Donations can be made out to power4u, c/o Big Woods EF!, POB 580936, Minneapolis, MN 55458. We're also found at (612) 362-3387; www.freenet.msp.mn.us/stop55