So is Minnesota or Minneapolis historically prepared for protests demanding justice for victims of police violence? And do you think that is another reason the Trump administration targeted Minnesota, because Minneapolis has a very strong community activism, uh, culture?

culture?Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

You know, I think that, uh, I, I moved to the Twin Cities, uh, for college and, uh, never looked back, and i- it seems to me to be that any time the state does something heinous, um, the Twin Cities shows up, uh, to defend ourselves and defend our neighbors.

And it seems that every single time there has been a big blow-up, you know, uh, Jamar Clark, uh, Marcus Golden, Philando Castile, uh, Jalal Id...

Like, I, I could go on and on naming names.

Um, and every single time this happens, more people get involved, more people see, you know, the truth about what's happening with, uh, state violence and the nature of policing as a whole.

And I think that, um, you know, with George Floyd, uh, the George Floyd uprising, we saw a, a massive, uh, shift away from this being, uh, a matter of, of, of activist networks and it being a matter of the entire city.

Did this cause a, a culture, a society of fear and of repression to the point that it did become a major obstacle to organizing in Minnesota?

So I guess jumping forward to Metro Surge, you've spoken elsewhere about your arrest, but I wonder if you could share with the audience some of that experience of what that felt like, what happened.

Yeah, so I had no idea that any of this was going to happen.

But I woke up one morning with six stars in GTA, rolled out of bed, heard a crash, and then some yelling.

Oh, man, the cat knocked a glass over, and this is going to blow over.

But the yelling kept happening, so I...

I got out of bed and kind of like stumbled towards my front door because I was definitely not fully awake.

And I turned the corner and I see, you know, a half a dozen people, full military gear, body armor, helmets, machine gun suppressors, all staring me down, guns pointed at my head.

Yeah, I think that