Viral images turn local bookstore owner into symbol of Minneapolis anger

When Greg Ketter learned that federal law enforcement agents had killed a second Minneapolis resident, he got in his car and drove the 30 minutes from his home in Andover to Nicollet Avenue, where Alex Pretti had been fatally shot.

He hadn’t witnessed ICE agents in Minneapolis like other residents have, he said. But he knows it’s happening. He’s been to a few of the protests and marches and visited Renee Good’s vigil.

He couldn’t quite explain why he felt compelled to make the drive, he said.

“I didn’t have a motive or other reason,” Ketter said. “I just felt I had to go down there. I wanted to be in that spot.”

Ketter didn’t know until later that photographers and videojournalists had captured his reaction and circulated it online. A friend in Madison, Wis., was the first to share the social media posts with him.

In one widely shared image, Ketter emerges from a cloud of tear gas in a purple beanie, black scarf and red flannel jacket. He’s not wearing any protective gear.

In a video, he stands on the sidewalk, arms at his sides, shouting into the haze, “I’m just angry. I’m 70 years old, and I’m [expletive] angry,” before the gas engulfs him.

Almost immediately after the photos and video were shared, the store’s website crashed, Ketter said. Four days later, it was still down. The shop’s Google page filled with hundreds of new reviews from Minnesotans and from people across the country who said they had been moved by what they saw.

Ketter said the store typically receives 10 to 15 mail orders a week. By Tuesday, there were more than 300.

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Some callers are hoping to place orders while the website is offline; others just want to tell Ketter how much they admire him.

Ketter said he was reminded of a TV interview he saw after Good was fatally shot by a federal agent a little more than three weeks ago. A man about his age, in tears, said he was ashamed of the direction the country was heading.

“I feel that way, too,” Ketter said. “This is not America. This is not where we should be, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

A steady stream of customers has come through the door to thank him in person, including Matt Dosser, 53, of Stacy, Minn., who had his own moment of local celebrity 13 years ago when he stopped a robbery at a Minneapolis neighborhood market.

“There’s something about an older man risking his life at that point, sucking in all that tear gas,” Dosser said. “It’s got me tearing up. Look at how they’ve treated people. They could have very easily knocked him on the head.”

It was Ketter’s defiance that resonated, Dosser said, prompting another customer to ask if he could “get a word in with the man of the hour.”