The day after in Minneapolis: Whittier neighborhood recovers after Pretti killing, protests

Ravi and Fiona Pradhan carried a white plastic bag and trash grabber around the Whittier neighborhood on Jan. 25.

The two picked up garbage near the vigil for Alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by federal officers during an immigration enforcement action in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.

The couple, who live in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood, answered a call from members of the adjacent Whittier neighborhood to help clean up after protests.

“We have enough motivated and dedicated people to stand up,” Ravi Pradhan said about south Minneapolis. “It’s our city.”

He visited Pretti’s fourplex home on Garfield Avenue and dropped off the lyrics to a Les Miserable song after reading online about Pretti’s interest in the musical.

“It was striking, the ordinariness,” Ravi said. “He was just another [regular guy].”

The shooting and protests Saturday ruptured normal weekend rhythms in the Whitter neighborhood, home to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the restaurants of Eat Street. The neighborhood on the south side is Minneapolis’s second most populous, with more than 14,000 residents in 2022. It’s also diverse, with nearly half its residents being people of color.

Pausing at the vigil site, Ravi Pradhan said the sense of community reminded him of what he saw after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

People have flocked to Whittier since Pretti was shot, first to protest federal agents’ presence and then to a vigil in nearby Whittier Park on Saturday night. On Sunday, people arrived in small groups to pay their respects to Pretti, some holding protest signs and Minnesota flags. The neighborhood has welcomed them.

South Minneapolis, including the Whittier neighborhood, has felt the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since November. A person was detained in the parking lot of Calvary Baptist Church, located just two blocks from where Pretti was killed, in late December, according to church administrator Dean Caldwell-Tautges.

The church moved its Jan. 25 Sunday services to Judson Memorial Baptist Church due to safety and security concerns.

“Everyone’s angry, scared, fed up, tired,” Caldwell-Tautges said, “and continues to work for justice.”

Christian Collins Winn, senior pastor, joined the church less than a year ago.

“We need to remember who we are,” he said. “Because if we give up on who we are, then that’s when it’s over. No one can take that from you.”

Travis Norvell, Judson Memorial Baptist Church’s pastor, used the service as a call to action for his members.

“Put on your high-vis vest of righteousness. As for your shoes, make sure they are snow boots with YakTrax on them,” he said. “Whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace with all this, make sure that you have your phone so you can record the truth and stand up to the lies.”

Many Eat Street restaurants became community centers on Sunday. Gina Christ, owner of the longstanding Black Forest Inn, opened her doors to serve free soup and coffee.

“I thought it was a moral imperative,” Christ said. “I knew everyone was going to need a warm spot.”

Pimento Jamaican Kitchen opened its doors to protesters on Saturday as a place of respite from tear gas and noise.

“I was running a restaurant in a war zone,” said Tomme Beevas, Pimento’s chief strategy officer. Amid the chaos, he said he saw some hopeful moments of real conversation between police and protesters.

He pieced the restaurant back together late Saturday and early Sunday, bringing in the yellow tables and chairs that protesters had pulled out as barricades, and calling on friends and volunteers to help staff the kitchen. Beevas said he was planning a Sunday evening block party with more free food for neighbors and protesters.

“This is our block,” he said. “We show up and we are prepared to hold our community.”

After Pretti’s killing, one neighbor said, the vigil was a balm. “We needed to mourn together.”

Like many neighbors at the vigil, she asked not to be identified for fear of retribution after protesting and helping other demonstrators on Saturday.

Residents of nearly every apartment building near the scene of the shooting let protesters into their vestibules and hallways to escape tear gas, wash their eyes, charge their phones and warm up from the biting cold.

Monitoring ICE activity had become a routine in the neighborhood with many immigrant residents and immigrant-owned businesses, so it was not unusual to hear of observers and ICE on Nicollet Avenue.

Activists in the neighborhood were stressed even before the shooting, forming block clubs and Signal chats to watch for ICE and bring supplies to people who have been afraid to leave their homes.