Opinion | In defense of local law enforcement

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

The woman with the red heart-shaped sunglasses turned to me instantly. The vulgar, hate-filled rant she had just been hurling at the three local sheriff’s deputies sitting in their vehicles had a new target: me.

“I am not going to listen to a [expletive] white man that doesn’t know is his own privilege. I am a white woman, but at least I know my own privilege!”

Other protesters near her nodded in agreement and made comments. Another woman walked past me with a scowl and said: “This isn’t your protest!”

And she was right.

It was a cold afternoon on Sunday, Jan. 18 at the Whipple Building, which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Minnesota. I was there for the third time to protest peacefully against ICE and the current presidential administration’s hard turn into fascism. I was there to stand up against authoritarianism, discrimination, racism, hatred and oppression. But I had not been there for five minutes when all that I was fighting was now directed at me personally. And it was coming from some of my fellow protesters.

I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. The air felt heavy. Before I left, I approached the three deputies. All three of them got out of their warm vehicles, into the cold, and we spoke together calmly, without fear-clouded minds.

I asked them questions about their presence, their power and their humanity. Their answers reminded me of the conversation I had with a Minneapolis police officer at a vigil for Renee Good. They were shocked by ICE tactics. They were frustrated by their lack of power over ICE agents. And they displayed empathy for the community that had been begging them for protection from ICE. They said they were there to keep people safe and do what they could to protect our right to protest peacefully. I thanked them for their efforts and left.

On the way to the parking lot I spoke with two more local deputies. They told me what it been like for them since their arrival at the Whipple Building the day before: a relentless barrage of nasty, hate-filled expletives and profane gestures from protesters similar to what I had just witnessed. One deputy had a protester spit in his face. Yet despite all of that hostility, they still felt compelled to protect the right to peacefully protest and keep people safe. As one deputy said, “I am a Minnesotan too.”

I don’t hate the woman in the red heart-shaped sunglasses or the protesters who were harassing local law enforcement. What happened to George Floyd in 2020 and Renee Good and Alex Pretti this year is frightening, and that fear is well-founded.

But if we let that fear grow into ignorance, hatred and oppression, if we attack others simply because of their badges, their skin color or their sex, we have become the enemy. And if it is a battle of fear and hatred versus fear and hatred, who wins?