# Minneapolis | Year Zero



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

A lot has happened since I posted in my old photothread, and it seemed like a good time to start another one. When the uprising was happening in Minneapolis I was sick with COVID long haul recovery syndrome and was bedridden while that was going on. As a result I don't have any photos of the uprising itself although I'm sure you all saw it on the news. On one hand it prevented me from taking what probably would have been the best photos of my life, on the other hand it did save me from having to dodge rubber bullets, marker rounds and tear gas. The Minneapolis police specifically target anyone with a camera at protests. In July I started to be well enough to leave the house so I started taking pictures. I was very weak from being bedridden, and still am but as I get stronger I will try to take more pictures. All of the photos I have so far are from South Minneapolis and most are from Lake Street where most of the action was. The areas where there were protests, street parties and fighting with police were on different parts of Lake Street on different days. All in all about a four mile (6 km) stretch of the street saw some activity.

All of these photos are from July:


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)




----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

Some photos from August:


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)




----------



## Skopje/Скопје (Jan 8, 2013)

Horrifying and sad...


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

In terms of urban fabric a lot of what was lost were post war suburban style buildings that didn't belong in the city, but there were also a decent amount of 100 year old brick storefronts that were burnt down. This could go in one of two ways. If that is replaced by modern urban five story mixed use buildings like those that have been popping up all over the city it may make Minneapolis a nicer and more urban city in the long run. The other possibility is that those lots sit vacant for decades which would be a disaster.


----------



## urbanite1 (Apr 6, 2013)

Hope you have totally recovered 
Shame some (black) people had to burn down their own neighbourhood in what is a just cause generally and will hopefully be a further step towards ending widespread racism in the USA.
Hope the burnt out low density lots will be a catalist for change in these areas with new urban buildings and more jobs for local people.


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

urbanite1 said:


> Shame some (black) people had to burn down their own neighbourhood in what is a just cause generally and will hopefully be a further step towards ending widespread racism in the USA.


This isn't really what happened. Different people set a lot of fires for a lot of different reasons but a large number of the arson arrests have been white people from the suburbs and small towns outside of the Twin Cities. The burning of the 3rd Precinct was entirely the product of an angry crowd (and city). Some of the others look like they were something else. In many of the areas where there were fires, gas stations were the first things lit on fire. The day after the 3rd Precinct burned, which was the most destructive day of the protests, the police spent the entire night protecting the fire department while they were putting out burning gas stations. While this was going on every pharmacy in the city was systematically looted. There were a lot of reports of fires set by white people in tactical gear who were driving cars without license plates. In the days immediately after the fires people were finding caches of bottles of gasoline stashed in various locations in the neighborhoods around Lake Street. It looks a lot like an organized group of people were using the protests as cover to create mayhem, and possibly a connected group was using that distraction to loot pharmacies. In my neighborhood the only buildings that were targeted were gas stations and drug stores. It is now known that the "umbrella man" who was the first one to start breaking windows on the second day of protests was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was also an associate of the North Minneapolis Hell's Angels. That is probably where the authorities should be (and probably are) looking.

Go to 4:13:20 or so of the video I posted and watch for a few minutes. The guy who is filming likely identified one of the groups of people driving the mayhem, It is the white people who brought full backpacks to the riot and aren't talking to anybody else, but obviously there was other stuff going on as well.


----------



## Gratteciel (May 4, 2008)

Very... very sad event!
I hope you are fully recovered from COVID.


----------



## Rekarte (Mar 28, 2008)

Heavy destruction! =/


----------



## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

Interesting but also sad photos from Minneapolis


----------



## urbanite1 (Apr 6, 2013)

Somnifor said:


> This isn't really what happened. Different people set a lot of fires for a lot of different reasons but a large number of the arson arrests have been white people from the suburbs and small towns outside of the Twin Cities. The burning of the 3rd Precinct was entirely the product of an angry crowd (and city). Some of the others look like they were something else. In many of the areas where there were fires, gas stations were the first things lit on fire. The day after the 3rd Precinct burned, which was the most destructive day of the protests, the police spent the entire night protecting the fire department while they were putting out burning gas stations. While this was going on every pharmacy in the city was systematically looted. There were a lot of reports of fires set by white people in tactical gear who were driving cars without license plates. In the days immediately after the fires people were finding caches of bottles of gasoline stashed in various locations in the neighborhoods around Lake Street. It looks a lot like an organized group of people were using the protests as cover to create mayhem, and possibly a connected group was using that distraction to loot pharmacies. In my neighborhood the only buildings that were targeted were gas stations and drug stores. It is now known that the "umbrella man" who was the first one to start breaking windows on the second day of protests was a member of a white supremacist prison gang who was also an associate of the North Minneapolis Hell's Angels. That is probably where the authorities should be (and probably are) looking.
> 
> Go to 4:13:20 or so of the video I posted and watch for a few minutes. The guy who is filming likely identified one of the groups of people driving the mayhem, It is the white people who brought full backpacks to the riot and aren't talking to anybody else, but obviously there was other stuff going on as well.


In the Austrian Media the pictures shown where mostly of black people looting etc. but they got the photos from the US media...
Looting / Fire raising: That white supremacists would do this is not surprising as they want the myth of the "violent criminal black male" to endure!

The BLM movement is undoubtly the biggest thing since the civil right movement in the 60s, the big difference is its international appeal - my home town of Graz / Austria saw the biggest demostration for decades this summer - it was a Black Lives Matter demonstration.
Graz has 300.000 inhabitants with under 2000 black(african) people living here but over 10.000 young and nearly all white people turned out for the BLM march.

There seems to be a big generational shift going on in Austria, in my generation (i`m in my mid 40s) racism is widespread and people get all wide eyed when I don`t laugh at some nasty remark about black people...
The young generation is generally speaking very different in Austria and in many other european countries and it seems to me that also in the USA there is a genaerational shift going on - so hopefully the future will be better.


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

Some more photos. This graveyard is a memorial to black Americans shot by the police under questionable circumstances:



This is my post office:





Not all of South Minneapolis is destruction:


----------



## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

Thanks for the new updates


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

A couple more photos from today:


----------



## diddyD (May 12, 2014)

A superb collection of pics.


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

Thanks for the comments. Some more pictures:


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

Some photos from yesterday and today:


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)




----------



## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

Great, very nice updates from Minneapolis


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)

Here are some photos I have taken since my last post:


----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)




----------



## Somnifor (Sep 6, 2005)




----------

