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1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Oct-2023 23:53:47 JST Paul Cantrell

   This story ought to be getting a whole lot more attention than it is.

   Minneapolis Police have been running something approaching a mafia-style protection racket targeting local businesses, especially minority-owned businesses.

   https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/10/17/small-business-owners-they-are-pressured-to-hire-off-duty-mpd-cops-for-security/

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   • AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:00:11 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     It gets wilder.

     One of the people in on that racket? Derek Chauvin. One of the people who worked at El Nuevo Rodeo, a targeted business? George Floyd.

     We already knew the two had crossed paths at El Nuevo Rodeo. That’s not news. But the whole situation takes on a different color when we realize that Chauvin was part of a pay-for-not-working fake security scam the police were running against the very business where Floyd provided real security. At minimum, it’s ironic. Maybe worse.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:02:07 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jonathan Wight

     @schwa
     Oh, it’s weird to me as a local who ate at that very restaurant. The puppet strings the police hold in local politics never cease to amaze me.

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     Jonathan Wight (schwa@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:02:08 JST Jonathan Wight

     in reply to

     @inthehands the very concept of police being used as private security in their off hours is such a weird concept to me as a foreigner.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:08:34 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     One more bitter irony I guess I should note for those who don’t live here:

     El Nuevo Rodeo was one of the businesses that burned to the ground in the uprising. They paid Derek Chauvin for 17 years to supposedly keep the place safe, and in the end his actions resulted in its total destruction.

     3/2

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:28:44 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • DryBird227

     @DryBird227
     Yeah. But if they choose what you call that easy choice, the. they don’t get to terrorize Black people with impunity, and if they can’t do that, what’s the point of living?? 🙃

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     DryBird227 (drybird227@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:28:45 JST DryBird227

     in reply to

     @inthehands Lmfao. This shit ain't in any way shape or form funny funny. But i'm laughing anyway. Why? Cause cops all across america had a choice. Either support protesters who were fighting to raise wages. Or. Do this kind of shit.

     Their own and their family member's well being hanging in the balance and they turn into a fucking mafia instead. When the easy choice was right fucking there.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:36:59 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • shansterable

     @shansterable
     The “first/third world” framing embeds the lie that there’s a clear line, that we’re “worlds” apart from that kind of dysfunction and corruption. The truth is that it’s a continuum and we’ve always been on it. And agreed, we’re backsliding.

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     shansterable (shansterable@c.im)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:37:00 JST shansterable

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     This reminds me of a conversation I had with a small business owner in Thailand.

     I asked him what it was like to run a business there. One of the bits of info he revealed was that he had to make monthly payments to the local mafia for protection. Any business that failed to do so would mysteriously experience unfortunate events.

     I have been saying for years that the US is slowly declining into third-world status. We have arrived?

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     DryBird227 (drybird227@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:39:59 JST DryBird227

     in reply to

     @inthehands I see your point and raise you that...they could still do that. But....with higher pay. There's nothing stopping them as we can see in the article. So if they had helped raise wages all across the country.

     They could have still abused, harassed, killed black people AND got more legal money doing it. Hell, they could have still ran protection rackets like in the above article and got even more money for themselves.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:39:59 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • DryBird227

     @DryBird227
     Yeah, you are totally correct.

     It’s only in the last few years I’ve come to appreciate the horrifying extent to which people are willing to hurt themselves as long as they hurt the Other even more. (You likely already know LBJ’s quote: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/)

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     DryBird227 (drybird227@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:46:29 JST DryBird227

     in reply to

     @inthehands Yeah i know it. It's wild because that sort of thing is clearly narcissism at work. Well, racism and narcissism go hand in hand. Can't be a proper racist without being mind numbingly stupid enough to think that hurting others somehow helps you.

     Here's an added part though. The latin community knew this. And we didn't hear anything about it at the time. Which would have helped. Stuff like that is also "normal".

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 00:46:29 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • DryBird227

     @DryBird227
     Nodding along to all that with a heavy heart.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 02:56:32 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Adam F. Lawton

     @Adam_Cadmon1
     Yup yup yup. Same here.

     I’m sure we’re still only scratching the surface of the true story. It’s so easy to imagine that, just for example, one particularly ugly night when Chauvin was being a turd and Floyd was fed up, Floyd making some off-the-cuff remark about Chauvin being a “fake-ass rent-a-cop” or something, and it got under Chauvin’s skin because he knew it was true, and…. We’ll probably never know.

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     Adam F. Lawton (adam_cadmon1@mastodon.online)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 02:56:33 JST Adam F. Lawton

     in reply to

     @inthehands that's really interesting. I knew they'd "worked" together so I always thought there was more to this than was reported. And this sort of proves that.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 02:57:28 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • ThusSpakeMe

     @ThusSpakeMe
     True. To be fair, it pays a lot of the other criminals too.

   • Embed this notice
     ThusSpakeMe (thusspakeme@hostux.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 02:57:30 JST ThusSpakeMe

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     It has often seemed to me that the only difference between the cops and criminals is that the state pays the cops.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:00:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Eva Chanda
     • Nini

     @nini @echanda
     I’ve heard a whole lot of rumbling to that effect, albeit no really solid confirmation. (The “Umbrella man” rumors didn’t pan out, for example.)

     But in a way, it doesn’t matter. The police knew what they were starting when they ratcheted up the violence in those protests again and again and again. They wanted the city to burn, to teach us all a lesson about challenging them. All they had to do was create the environment and step back. Stochastic arson, if you will.

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     Eva Chanda (echanda@mstdn.ca)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:00:21 JST Eva Chanda

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     Maybe Chauvin burned it down.

   • Embed this notice
     Nini (nini@bitbang.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:00:21 JST Nini

     in reply to

     • Eva Chanda

     @echanda @inthehands Much of the actual property damage was caused by plain clothes police so very likely.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:01:07 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Eva Chanda
     • Nini

     @nini @echanda
     (And there is the thing — this much better confirmed — about the police actively stopping the fire department from putting out the fires once they started. In case anybody doubts the conscious intent.)

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:02:46 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • das_menschy

     @das_menschy
     My armchair legal ignoramus understanding of RICO law is that it’s surprisingly narrow and complex, and if you think it’s RICO, it’s almost never actually RICO.

     But…the bigger picture here is if what they weren’t doing was legal (or de facto legal because un-prosecutable), then the law is seriously screwed up and needs to change.

   • Embed this notice
     das_menschy (das_menschy@toot.bike)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:02:48 JST das_menschy

     in reply to

     @inthehands Could the RICO act be taken against the police? That would be insane.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:03:38 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Rob

     @krozruch
     It was reported widely, if quietly, in 7th paragraphs etc. But this adds a whole new dimension that I don’t think has been previously reported.

   • Embed this notice
     Rob (krozruch@kolektiva.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:03:39 JST Rob

     in reply to

     @inthehands I was looking back over some of this this month and wondered again about Chauvin and Floyd and what went on between them.. Looking it up, I found it was not entirely trivial to find reports of their having known one another / worked together; many outlets that should have covered this chose not to.

   • Embed this notice
     Elise Jessee (ekjessee@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:04:35 JST Elise Jessee

     in reply to

     @inthehands This is so interesting, it seems like such an abuse of power by someone in a position of authority. They can't do this!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 03:04:35 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Elise Jessee

     @ekjessee
     Yeah. It turns out apparently they can.

     We really, really need city council members here in Minneapolis who are willing to fight these kinds of fights. It’s certainly note going to come from this nincompoop of a mayor we have right now.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 04:32:52 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Panama Red

     @panamared27401
     Maybe? It’s bullshit regardless. See here:
     https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/111296968461808746

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     Panama Red (panamared27401@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 26-Oct-2023 04:32:53 JST Panama Red

     in reply to

     @inthehands It is RICO, is what it is

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 02:31:19 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Ian Coldwater 📦💥
     • Eva Chanda
     • Nini

     @ian @nini @echanda
     I want to be careful to recognize the many very different actors here, with different agendas.

     The burning of the 3rd precinct was •not• an inside job. That was an extreme expression of very legitimate grievance by people who’d long been the target of police violence.

     I don’t think those same people were saying “fuck Nuevo Rodeo, fuck Gandhi Mahal.” Same uprising, but not the same people with the same motivations. In particular…

   • Embed this notice
     Ian Coldwater 📦💥 (ian@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 02:31:20 JST Ian Coldwater 📦💥

     in reply to

     • Eva Chanda
     • Nini

     @nini @inthehands @echanda this is counterrevolutionary propaganda and I will say so every time I see it. Regular people can be legitimately angry, and they have agency to do things themselves!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 02:33:38 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Ian Coldwater 📦💥
     • Eva Chanda
     • Nini

     @ian @nini @echanda
     …if you look at who was targeted, there were surely white supremacists targeting minority-owned/associated buildings under cover of chaos, and sure, some of them could have been plainclothes police. And I know there were drunk idiots who don’t give a damn about the people, and just thought setting things on fire would be funny.

     None of that undermines Ian’s point re burning of the 3rd precinct being a sincere expression of grievance by the aggrieved.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 04:00:17 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • bubbajet
     • Lisa Melton

     @bubbajet @lisamelton
     Take that money out of the officers’ pockets and I’m in.

   • Embed this notice
     bubbajet (bubbajet@mastodon.world)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 04:00:19 JST bubbajet

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton

     @inthehands @lisamelton
     The city should be required to repay the businesses -cash- for all they paid to these off-duty cops. No documentation needed by the businesses, just “I paid this much” and here is your truckload of cash.

     Maddening.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 05:05:36 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • bubbajet

     @bubbajet
     Hey, we’re clearly fantasizing here, so let’s go all in.

     (But in seriousness: I don’t want police to be even more of a vortex that siphons off money from city services that are actually positive things.)

   • Embed this notice
     bubbajet (bubbajet@mastodon.world)'s status on Friday, 27-Oct-2023 05:05:37 JST bubbajet

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     That would be my first choice, but it’s probably already spent.