Conflict seems to generate technological change. If you’ve been paying attention to the war in Ukraine, you likely know this already. On-the-ground tactics and technology evolve constantly, and the occupation of Minneapolis by armed federal agents is no exception. The conflict between them and neighbor observers reveals a lot about the changing ways that automobiles function in our city.

For example, late last week I spent 45 minutes staring at a light blue Dodge Durango with Nebraska plates, while two men (allegedly) from Customs and Border Patrol idled on a street two blocks from my house. My first thought was that the car was dirtier than I was expecting. To make a long story short, not much happened. 

But I was not alone. A bunch of neighbors, all people I hadn’t met before, were with me on the sidewalk. There was a continual churn of people from stopping by, coming out of their houses, or slowing down in their cars to ask what was happening. People took shift tracking and witnessing the federal agents conducting whatever they were conducting in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood that day. 

Related: The ICE occupation, unlike the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, is an intentional disruption

As one local sociologist pointed out, even if nothing happens, this kind of observation is not a meaningless gesture. In an interview with MPR, sociologist Nicole Bedera explained: “An ICE watch works by surrounding these people — who will only engage in violence if they can get approval — with disapproval.”

By this analysis, just the act of observing is a worthy goal, even if nothing occurs. To me, this seems like the triumph of passive-aggression, an ideal Minnesotan tactic. Yet it was cold that afternoon, and the wind was picking up. My time staring at the Durango, its engine running, was simultaneously alarming and mindlessly dull. 

One recent pontificator called out the odd nature of this tension, writing that things have developed into a surreal combination of the perilous and the banal. In his Substack essay, the Star Tribune’s Michael Rand described how the present moment “feels like everything is normal and not normal all at once.”

This is a fact on Twin Cities’ streets, where the cars themselves are at the center of the escalating conflict.  

As we stood outside staring at the Dodge, trying to peer inside, one neighbor said to me: “So many cars have tinted windows.”

This is something I’ve been thinking about for years. As a pedestrian and bicycle advocate, window tinting has long frustrated me by preventing needed eye contact, and — in my view — granting drivers anonymity and unaccountability. While Minnesota has relatively strict laws about window tinting, SUVs are somehow placed in a separate, more lenient category. This might be yet another reason why so many of the agents are driving SUVs; I’ve yet to see ICE roll up in a Chevy Volt.

As we watched the Durango, a Pioneer Press photographer appeared, walking from down the block. All in black, he was immediately identifiable, carrying multiple cameras, bags of equipment, and visibly wearing his press lanyard. 

Unlike my neighbors and I, who stood 20 feet back, the photographer walked right up to the front of the vehicle full of agents. (I noted that, with his hat and lanyard, he was identified better than the supposed law enforcement I have seen on the streets.) He snapped two photos of the men in the car, and then he approached us and said “looks like they’re ready to spray.” One of the agents was holding a canister of tear gas at the ready, aimed at the sidewalk.

Apart from the photographer, the highlight of my vigil was when another car pulled up and parallel parked in front of the Dodge. I worried for a moment, but it was just someone who lived in the house next door. She got out of her car and went inside, and nothing remarkable took place.

The mundane nature of this conflict is a surreal problem. Millions of people live in the Twin Cities, and most of them are still living their lives, going about their days, while a heavily armed group violates civil rights on a daily basis, seemingly unaccountable to any legal authority (even if they shoot people).

This means that, at any point, anyone driving around the city could randomly find themselves in the midst of a terrifying incident. This is exactly what happened to Destiny Jackson and her family in North Minneapolis last week, much to the detriment of the family’s mental and physical health.  

Cars play central role in Twin Cities ICE occupation

Automobiles have played a central role in both the occupation of the Twin Cities by federal agents, and its resistance, in part, because wintertime generally keeps people off the cold sidewalks, and in part because of the ever-shifting tactical grounds of the conflict. One obvious and tragic example is how Renee Good was killed by Jonathan Ross while driving her Honda Pilot. Multiple newspapers have painstakingly parsed videos to examine where Ross was standing and how Good’s SUV wheels were turned. Theoretically a lot depends on these conclusions, but it looks like in practice the federal government will not be investigating the incident. 

This kind of adjudication has a longer history, where cars frame how we think about power struggles over public space. For many years, protest and free speech have been limited by the de facto rights of automobile drivers. Sometimes vehicles become weapons, disrupting political demonstrations like the one in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the 2017 murder of Heather Heyer. There is also the increasing legal immunization of drivers in states like Iowa and Oklahoma, whose governments seem to be legalizing, in advance, assaults on protestors in public space.

As I stood on the sidewalk, whistle at the ready, I watched an old Mazda 3 pull up. It contained two people from Minneapolis who had trailed the Border Patrol vehicle and seemed to be in it for the long haul. They offered to let anyone warm up in their back seat. (I did not take them up on the offer.) At the same time, I worried for their status as followers and observers, and where their rights to use the road might be curtailed.

Eventually, the Dodge drove away. I returned to my warm home. 

Nothing happened this time, but on the streets right now, every day, the best word for what’s happening is mayhem. I’m weirdly reminded of the Allstate insurance commercials starring Dean Winters, only with protagonists donning weapons and body armor. The present moment escalates long-simmering tensions between motor vehicles and public space.

To begin with, federal agents are driving unmarked cars that lack emergency lights and equipment required for other law enforcement, yet they treat the streets with the usual police impunity. This leads to things like running though stop signs outside elementary schools, harassing or detaining people for walking in crosswalks, and countless other impingements on urban mobility.

Then there are the chases, one of the only ways regular people can witness these often extrajudicial actions. I’ve written before about how dangerous high-speed chases are for innocent bystanders, and this kind of situation seems to be happening daily. Take as an example the video released by erstwhile poster and policy wonk Will Stancil, where he follows an alleged ICE SUV around South Minneapolis as it winds through Uptown. This is necessary work these days, the only way anyone has any information about the activity of federal agents, who are brazenly grabbing people including little kids. I’m amazed more people haven’t been hurt.

It doesn’t help that the rule of law has been largely absent from Twin Cities streets for years. By all accounts, traffic enforcement has plummeted since COVID. The ICE occupation is not improving the situation, but normalizing disregard for human life.

This morning, while driving her to school, my 4-year-old daughter and I witnessed someone blatantly run a red light at Dale and Interstate 94. She’s become an increasingly keen-eyed observer of city streets, and she blurted out from the back seat “Daddy, that car went between two other cars.”

“Yes, it did,” I replied.

“Are the police going to get them?” 

“No,” I sighed.

Whenever this occupation is over, we need to return to enforcing basic rules for drivers and automobiles. Cities should regulate tinted windows, for example, and ticket cars that lack front or rear license plates. Cities should enforce parking laws and should do something, ideally without actual police involvement, to disincentivize speeding and red light running.

The federal occupation has brought all of these long-standing issues to a precipitous point, and the sooner the mayhem stops, the better. The only way for that to happen is for the unwelcome federal agents to cease their anonymous and unaccountable persecution of everyday people on the streets of the Twin Cities. It’s only a matter of time before another tragedy strikes on the city’s sidewalks.

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