Letter from Ron Bishop

Bishop: A Call To Action for Us All

Like many, I was appalled and deeply saddened by the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Incident videos clearly indicated that neither of them posed immediate threats to anyone at the time of their shooting. Statements made by various federal officials utterly contradict what each of us saw and heard, shredding any trust in them that we might earlier have harbored, even if only in deference to the offices they hold.

Relatives and friends in the Twin Cities all report that the reality there is far worse than any broadcast footage: hundreds of unmarked vehicles with heavily armed masked agents roaming the streets at all hours, dozens of unoccupied cars left running with smashed windows and doors ajar. The sustained brutality of federal law enforcement personnel and their intentional trampling on denizens’ due process rights has some folks comparing them to the Gestapo of 1930s Germany, but I tend to agree with historians that they more nearly resemble the slave patrols of our own sordid past.

Naturally, this para-military occupation has launched a resistance movement. James O’Keefe recently marveled at their organization and efficiency even as he decried the harsh treatment he received from the citizens of Minneapolis. (He claimed that his face covering was for the sub-zero cold.) He also wondered where the local police were that one might normally expect to see, and why they weren’t cooperating with federal officials. I believe he may have missed the main point: These are not normal circumstances and cooperation is not equal to civic duty.

Against my will, my perspective has changed. Always an order-loving type, I never used to blink about cooperating with law enforcement folks. Our local sheriff’s signing of an unholy agreement with federal officials officially brought the resistance here. Now, with each new peace officer interaction I must stop and consider: Are these people the good ones?…or the others? (I realize that my more beautifully pigmented neighbors and relatives have always faced this calculation.) This is a tragedy for our amazing public servants from the sheriff’s office and elsewhere who have been shoved into this ugly situation.

For all of us, it is a call to action. Order depends on the power of law, not the law of power. Let us grow and strengthen our resistance until it is no longer needed. And may that time come swiftly.

Ron Bishop
Cooperstown