MINNEAPOLIS — The sites of the three consequential deaths span just over two miles of south Minneapolis. George Floyd in 2020, Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month.
The death of Floyd, after a police officer dug a knee into his neck for more than nine minutes, was a catalyst for the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests that sought law enforcement reforms and accountability.
Those of Good and Pretti, shot by federal immigration agents, have similarly sparked demands that federal agents to stop using violence in pursuit of President Trump’s mass deportation effort.
The sites are close enough to walk in an hour. So, on Sunday, I did.
George Floyd
Floyd was killed just outside of Cup Foods, since renamed Unity Foods. On a wall outside the convenience store, Esther Osayande’s painting “Sankofa” depicts a bird with its head turned back, surrounded by flames.
The description says it is a metaphorical symbol used by the Akan people of Ghana to express “the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present.”
“Sankofa tells us that we as a people can rise above conflicts of ego and treat all beings we meet as brothers and sisters,” it states.
On the same wall, someone spray painted, “My cries are 4 humanity.”
The memorial, known locally as George Floyd Square, encompasses a nearby covered bus stop, where a visitor had written that “race is a made up idea to keep ppl down.” Against the shelter glass, someone had taped a typed notice of emergency. It lists “martyrs” killed by authorities — Good, Floyd, Philando Castile and others before them.
“This ICE operation is somehow simpler AND more malicious than the kill count accumulated by our PD,” the notice reads. “This is slave catching. This is gestapo.”
Nearly six years after Floyd’s death, some of the memorial art has begun to fade under the sun. A metal archway gives way to a plastic A-frame board describing Floyd and the global movement that his murder inspired.
“George’s name has become a rallying cry for those who believe in a better future, one where all people are treated with dignity and respect,” it reads.
Few people gathered at the memorial Sunday morning, but real and fake flowers, blanketed by snow, covered the site. A family with children got out of an SUV and walked around. A young photographer snapped some shots. And a couple took their time weaving through the makeshift garden.
Floyd’s cousin Paris Stevens is co-chair of Rise and Remember, which preserves the memorial and leads tours of the area. She said the organization wanted to give the community a safe space to grieve, “because everybody has lost someone.”
The thread linking the deaths of her cousin, Good and Pretti, Stevens said, is that they all could have been prevented. The fact that people have begun to visit all three sites is a sign of how unjust killings bring out the humanity in people, she said.
“How do we care for one another in times of need?” she asked. The answer, in part, is found in the artwork, writings and flowers at the three memorials.
“For this to happen, it’s like we’re picking up the ball and running again,” she said. “We’ve been here before and we know what to do.”
Renee Good
Portland Avenue, where Good died less than a mile from Floyd, is lined with Craftsman-style homes. Many displayed “ICE OUT” or “Black Lives Matter” signs — or both — in their front windows.
One window posed a question: “How many weren’t filmed?”
Stapled to a telephone pole was a letter addressed to federal agents: “It might be hard to understand why almost all Our City’s residents are angry with Your Mission (which has changed radically over the past year). This handbill intends to resolve confusion. I hope it finds you well.”
Another telephone pole struck a different tone:
“ICE ARE TERRORISTS KIDNAPPERS MURDERERS.”
On a wooden fence, Good’s portrait accompanied those of Floyd and other Black men killed by police in Minnesota in recent years, among them Daunte Wright, Winston Boogie Smith Jr. and Amir Locke.
A handwritten sign quoted Good’s last words: “I’m not mad at you, dude.”
In the center of Good’s memorial, a man gingerly brushed snow from cardboard signs, shook out bouquets of flowers and wiped off teddy bears. It was a losing battle. Snow was falling, leaving fresh white dots on everything he cleared.
A woman walked up with a handful of yellow tulips. “Hello, is there somewhere I should put these in particular?”
“Anywhere is fine,” said the man.
American, Mexican and LGBTQ+ flags hung from the site. One handwritten note, signed by “A DHS employee,” stated: “We will never forget you.”
Some mourners had shared small tokens of positivity. “Please take a pocket heart,” read one laminated sign. “Keep it with you to be a constant reminder that you are loved!”
Others, knowing Good had been a poet, wrote poems of their own:
Towards new ages imagined yet still out of hand
We’ll build a place safe for us all where you stood
Where love’s lyrics echo we’ll compose what we can
To that I offer these words, would they were as good as
Good’s.
Among the couple dozen people at the site were Kayla Gardner, 29, and three friends. Gardner said she had brought flowers to place at each of the three memorials.
“I wanted to get to Renee and Alex’s,” she said, “but we didn’t want to leave out George, too. He’s right here.”
Alex Pretti
On a traffic pole down the street, above a “Lost Cat” sign, a note in Spanish warns residents of increased immigration police presence since Dec. 22. It advises residents not to leave their homes unless necessary, to have groceries delivered and to establish an emergency plan for their children.
“These are difficult and uncertain moments for our community,” it says.
Lake Street, a hub of Latino businesses, is about halfway between where Good and Pretti were killed. Murals on side streets depict women cooking tortillas on a comal and musicians playing guitar and accordion. Businesses there have responded to the immigration raids in a variety of ways.
A notice in Spanish posted on the door of a western wear shop says, “Closed for the security of our clients.”
A nearby Ecuadorean restaurant, meanwhile, offers delivery but not sit-down service.
Pretti died near Glam Doll Donuts, along another vibrant stretch of diverse, immigrant-owned restaurants known as Eat Street. As the days went on after his killing, fewer news cameras turned up, but mourners kept coming.
Standing over the memorial that has grown to take up the length of a building, a man in a The North Face jacket sobbed quietly. Another lighted incense sticks and stuck them in the snow.
Votive candles depicted Jesus, the Virgin of Gudalupe and Mister Rogers.
A letter offers a source of comfort: “If I have two rooms, one dark, the other light, and I open the door between them, the dark room becomes lighter without the light one becoming darker. I know this is no headline, but it’s a marvelous footnote.”
Also on display were lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” which call out White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Home Security Secretary Kristi Noem:
It’s our blood + our bones
And these whistles + phones
Against Miller +
Noem’s Dirty Lies.
New artwork appears daily. An oil painting depicting a smiling Pretti in glasses, a beanie and a scarf, was among the most recent.
Leah Dunbar, 50, was moved to tears looking at it. Dunbar, who lives nearby, had brought Somali chicken sambusas for fellow mourners standing in the cold.
Reflecting on his death, she had asked herself, “What is the good that is coming out of this? Do we have space in our lives to see the good?”
“Of course we do,” she said. “Look — people are making, people are creating, people are sharing.”
The post In Minneapolis, a mournful pilgrimage of three death sites appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
