The way things really are in Minneapolis

Outraged, they came, protested, and then did a little shopping

Everyone has seen the videos of the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a hapless petty criminal. And now looting and arson are happening all over the city. How did a very civilized city come to this?

Well, progressives, of course. But beyond that, do folks know the City of Minneapolis operates a protection racket?

All of the adults on the city council have retired or been voted out, and the council is now composed of earnest young progressives like our boy mayor Jacob Frey. And what does every young progressive like Jacob fear the most? Being called a racist. We also have a few AOC types who want to seize the Lake of the Isles mansions for the (well-connected) people.

Generous welfare benefits combined with importing a few hundred thousand East Africans means that Mary Tyler Moore’s clean, well-run hub of tech, manufacturing, and agriculture is now rather troublesome. The Somalis were actually welcomed for their

work ethic and strong family ties. But the next generation–this always happens with any ethnic group imported into a different culture–doesn’t remember what a hell hole they left, and resent that they’re not doing coke off Amber Heard’s tits like all the white people are.

So they get restive and look for opportunities for trouble.

Retail stores are soon found to be easy targets. Chain stores are the easiest. CVS and Walgreens and Chipotle will absolutely fire any employee who looks at a petty criminal in a mean way. The store manager is held responsible for shrinkage –loss due to theft– but if the manager even attempts to stop theft, he or she will be fired.

Now one might wonder how those two drug giants keep the doors open. The answer is the pharmacies. Those make so much money that the retail floor can lose quite a bit. It’s not unlimited; CVS just closed four or five stores in the highest theft areas. But they’ll suffer a fair amount.

Now add in the great progressive paranoia: I cannot stand to be called a racist.

So rather than risk that city and county officials decided to stop enforcing laws against retail theft. Remember that video from a San Francisco store of thieves cleaning out all the makeup in a drugstore in broad daylight? It happens here in Minneapolis also.

Here the thieves will grab a box of trash bags off the shelf, pull out a couple, and fill it with easily fenced stuff like Tide detergent, diapers, and small electronics. If there are cigarettes, they’ll jump over the counter and grab them, along with Similac baby food (that’s already behind the counter due to high theft). Then they will walk out, and if you stand in their way, you may get shoved down. Certainly all of the “Sir, please, stop” which is the corporate recommended solution, will not slow them down.

The really great thing is, a merchant can call the police while burning a DVD of the perp’s faces, and the cops probably will not show up. If someone is injured by the bad guys, probably someone will come and hand the manager a card with a case number, but that is all that will happen. I have seen this many times in many stores.

When this virus thing happened, the city actually announced that they would not prosecute retail theft and transit fare jumping, among other things.

So what is a merchant to do? Well, you have to pay protection, of course. Private security cannot do any more than talk to the thieves. But you can hire a member of the Badge Gang: an off-duty Minneapolis police officer.

This is very expensive. Cops here make 25 or more an hour in a regular workweek. But now it’s overtime, plus whatever “administrative” fees the city chooses to add. And they’re going to add it because these off-duty hours count toward retirement pay. Merchants have to raise prices, and you know that’s racist too.

Of course, the fact that the Auto Zone car parts store, across the street from the 3rd Precinct, has been paying protection for years didn’t help them last night when Arsonists For Justice showed up. The police say they will protect lives and property. However, the council members have made it crystal clear that they expect the cops to hunker down and take the medicine. So Minneapolis PD will not risk those lovely-retire-at-42-pensions.

That’s just how it goes in the 21st century in lovely, well-educated and progressive Minneapolis.