The July 4 Rampage Continues

On the night of July 4, criminals used fireworks to terrorize innocent bystanders in Minneapolis. Now it’s moved indoors. Criminals set off fireworks inside a movie theater just a couple of miles from my house:


Are the Twin Cities descending toward an unlivable state of chaos? And will the voters tolerate this complete absence of any civilized norms? Ask me in November.

This leads to another story. After the July 4 rampage, in which at least a dozen people were shot and many more were harassed and terrorized, new Minneapolis City Council member Michael Rainville tried to respond constructively:

[H]e said during a community meeting about public safety that he planned to talk to Somali elders and tell them “their children can no longer have that type of behavior.”

Big mistake! The roof fell on Rainville’s head, and he apologized abjectly–always a mistake:

Minneapolis City Council Member Michael Rainville is facing an avalanche of criticism after he blamed primarily Somali youth for a wave of violence on July 4 that included a shooting at a large gathering at Boom Island Park and others launching fireworks toward cars and buildings while driving on downtown streets.
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That comment caused Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to question the sincerity of Rainville’s apology.

“We are pretty disappointed; the initial apology may not be as genuine as we had hoped,” Hussein said in an interview Sunday. “We are not satisfied with the apology as it stands today. He can’t double down and just say it was a simple misunderstanding.”

No apology ever placates the Left.

Three of Rainville’s fellow City Council members issued a statement Friday night calling the Ward 3 council member’s words “inappropriate, incorrect and disturbing.”

In their statement, council members Jamal Osman, Jeremiah Ellison and Aisha Chughtai called for Rainville to make a formal apology and hold a community meeting to allow community members to share how his comments affected them.

I’m going to hazard the wild guess that Rainville’s “comments” do not rank among the top two or three problems facing the Twin Cities Somali community.

The Somali Student Association at the University of Minnesota also condemned Rainville’s comments, calling his words “hurtful” and “disrespectful.”
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Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation President Samantha Pree-Stinson said Sunday in a Facebook post that she has filed an an ethics complaint against Rainville.

It goes on and on. No one denies, of course, that some of the youths who engaged in shootouts and other violent behavior on July 4 were Somali. Faced with an epidemic of violent crime that is tearing the Twin Cities apart, the one thing no politician can do is utter any true statement about where the violence is coming from.

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