Minnesota

Watching the news and seeing what is happening in Minnesota right now is tearing me apart.  A wife and mother was shot in a soccer Mom’s vehicle.  Her last words to the ICE agent who would later shoot her in the head were, “It's okay, I’m not mad at you.” 

That is about the most Minnesotan thing she could have said. I am willing to bet that, as she turned her wheels away from the agent to leave, she said “Ope” or “uff-da” as she cranked the wheel.

I watched ICE agents hold back a physician who was trying to offer help. She had a heartbeat for 8 minutes.  Were the odds likely that she would have survived?  I can’t guess. I have seen people shot in the head, shot numerous times, and they have lived.  No one will ever know.  But I know the horror and frustration of the physician. 

Not that many years ago, I witnessed a motorcycle policeman T-bone a van at fifty miles an hour.  He flew off the bike, hitting the ground so hard that his handgun went flying.  As a nurse, like all medical professionals, it is built into us to run to the scene of a disaster. My mind wasn’t on who had the gun, or the fact that he was lying in the middle of a road, with cars speeding past him, not stopping.  My mind was on the injured officer, lying alone on the road.  I yelled to the hysterical van driver to call 911 and report “officer down” to convey the seriousness of the situation.  Then I knelt on the hot tar road and rendered assistance until the paramedics arrived.

I watched a nurse be shot on the news.  A woman was pepper-sprayed and pushed down.  The nurse focused on the woman; he reached out to help her up and check whether she was hurt, assessing her injuries. This act is as instinctual as breathing for a nurse to check the injured person. 

In a moment like that, his mind would slow down, his focus would narrow.  The outside world faded away.  He was removing her from danger while conducting a head-to-toe assessment. It is a skill learned, practiced, and repeated daily for an ICU nurse. It is a skill that saves lives.  It is those skills that allow nurses to stand between you and death.  It is those skills and empathy that make Registered Nurses the number one trusted professionals in the United States, if not the world.    Nurses don’t ask about your religion, your race, or your sexual identity.  Nurses don’t care about your income, and we don’t give a damn about who you voted for in the last election. 

Alex Pretti was a Registered Nurse.

He was tear-gassed.  He would have been blinded.  Just as the woman he put his arms around to protect, his eyes would be burning and watering.  His vision would have been minimal as the tear gas floated in the air, heavy and sinking low. 

I have been pepper-sprayed.  I once bought a small can of pepper spray for self-defense and put it on my key ring. On a sub-zero evening, after work and tired, I got in my car, having scraped the snow and ice off the windshield.  Tired, grumpy, and freezing, I fumbled around for my keys.  Of course, the keys were tangled up, and I had to yank them apart.  As I yanked, swore, and pulled, I released the pepper spray.  It took seconds for the spray to engulf the rusted-out 1981 Chevy Citation.  I managed to open the door and fling myself into the snow.  Gagging and coughing, I washed my eyes in the snow.   Even after airing out the car as best as I could and driving home with all four windows down and the vents wide open, my eyes were teary and burning. 

Tear gas is composed of chemicals that irritate the skin, lungs, and eyes.  Unlike its name, “gas,” it doesn’t float away in the wind; it is heavy and lingers.  It remains on clothing, the skin, and the eyes until it is washed off.

Alex Pretti would have been blinded. 

Blinded, trying to help a woman who had been pushed down, Alex Pretti was pushed down.  He was wearing a gun in a holster at his waist.  The gun was removed as someone yelled, “He’s got a gun!”  Alex Pretti was legally carrying a gun, as guaranteed by the American Constitution’s Right to Bear Arms. 

The Right to Bear Arms, so often used to defend school shootings, is based on the constitutional right to have a well-armed militia.  Our founding fathers, just human beings, not God-gifted with prophecy, wrote that out to protect the states from the government.  If at anytime the government became oppressive, the citizens could rise and restore power to the people of this country.  Freedom is tenuous, and the founding fathers knew the price paid for freedom.

The gun was taken away, yet Alex Pretti was shot.  I can only assume for the crime of legally wearing a gun in the public street of his state.  Not just once, but repeatedly shot, until he could no longer rise up.

If it is now legal to shoot a man for wearing a gun, which he was permitted to wear, then we no longer have the Second Amendment.  We no longer have the power of the states or the power of the people to rule us.  We only have bullies, bigots, and tyrants.

Alex Pretti was executed on a snowy Minnesota street for daring to use his Second Amendment right.   That alone should frighten the men and women who fight so hard for their Right to Bear Arms. 

I worry about my family and friends in Minnesota.  I worry about Lily’s cousins, who were born in Minnesota and are afraid to step outside, because their skin is a different color. 

I worry about my friend, who has been a sister to me for the thirty-plus years. Our views are divergent, but our hearts have never faltered.  We don’t agree on some things, but we would fight anyone who tried to take away our friend’s right to say what they believe.

She wears guns; she owns guns. She also tends to flip off people who anger her. What would happen if someone determined she should be executed for wearing a gun? Has America reached the point that the punishment for exercising your Second Amendment rights is death without trial?

Regardless of which side she is on, I defend her right to speak.  I defend her right to carry a gun.  I even defend her right to argue or flip people off.  I would not defend her drawing guns on another human being, but I would try to understand.

Alex Pretti never drew his gun.  It was taken away by an ICE agent before he was executed.

      The pictures of a five-year-old boy being led by his backpack handle into a van to be detained are haunting.  If you tug on the pom-poms of the hat, the bunny ears will stand up.  I bought Lilly a hat like that when she was five years old.  The news gives two sides: Liam’s father used him as a distraction to run from ICE.  Or Liam was used as bait to lure his parents out so they could be detained.  A political cartoon shows a child being held upright by an ICE agent, titled “ICE fishing.”

                One side makes statements that his father was here legally, seeking asylum, and has no criminal record.  That the parents were doing everything right to remain in the United States.  I have not seen any evidence that Liam’s parents were the “worst of the worst” criminals to be rounded up and deported. 

                What I have seen is the picture of a frightened little boy, being directed into a van by his backpack.  Directed by big people, with serious voices and weapons.  We were promised that the targets would be the criminals, here illegally, who repeatedly rape, murder, or steal from Americans.

                I was told Liam’s detainment is his parents’ fault.  That they came here illegally, and so they must take the blame for their detainment.  I thought of a diary I read as a child.  The diary of a young girl who had no control over her life, but was punished because of who she was, what she represented.  It was not her fault that she was born Jewish and that she was alive at a time when it was illegal to be Jewish.  If it was not her fault, and the Nazi’s were just doing their job to enforce the law, it must be her parents’ fault.

                Anne Frank’s parents were Jewish, yet they had children.  Throughout time, it has been a crime to be Jewish, yet they dared to have a child.  Surely, they should have known the consequences.  If they wanted to have children, her parents should have immigrated to America and attended an acceptable Lutheran church.

                I think of Lilly at five.  She trusted the police, firemen, nurses, and doctors. One day, she wandered away from me at the art fair in the park.  I was waiting at the front of the bouncy house for her to come out with the herd of children.  Instead, Lilly went out of the back entrance to avoid the line.

                I waited outside, watching the children come out, but mine was gone.  The horror on my face was apparent, as the lady running the bouncy house immediately asked me what was wrong.  

                My mouth was dry, my heartbeat was in my throat, my brain was screaming as I told her, “My daughter was in there, but she didn’t come out.”

                The blessing was that we lived in a small town at the time.  Immediately, a posse of mothers surrounded me, questioning me about what she was wearing and how she looked. I was frozen in fear, my body burned in terror, a feeling only a mother would know. 

                Then, in what was only a minute or two, I saw Lilly.  She came walking through the crowd, holding the hand of one of the CNAs on my staff.  She had become disoriented and couldn’t find me, so she had walked up to a person she knew was a “good person,” in her words, and asked for help.  Tammy took her hand and brought her back to me.

                I will never forget those few moments when my child was gone.  There is no description that would adequately paint what I felt.  Lilly had been frightened as well, completely turned around by going out the wrong exit.  But she found a friendly face willing to help.

                My heart breaks for Liam Ramos, imprisoned now for no crime other than being born to his parents.  I know his mother is frantic, separated from her child.  I wonder if he cries at night for his mother.  At that age, Lilly would not sleep unless I was home.  When work meant I had to be away overnight, she wouldn't go to bed until I called her at 8 pm each night.  A tradition that continues to this day when we are apart.

                “Life is Beautiful” is a movie.  A father and son are detained, and the father convinces the son that it is all a game.  Perhaps Liam’s father is doing the same.  Perhaps Liam’s father is with his son, reassuring him that his mother and brother are okay and that the baby they are expecting will be okay.

                Maybe Liam’s father is apologizing to his son.  Apologizing for being a target of color, applying for asylum in America, and trusting in the legal system.

                Liam’s father has no criminal record.  The family attorney states that he was in the process of applying for asylum and was legally in Minnesota. Yet he has been detained as part of an effort to find and remove the “worst of the worst” from Minnesota.

                Liam Ramos is five years old. 

                We have been told that if the protesters went home and complied, nothing would happen to them.  If everyone would just cooperate and report their neighbors and friends who are here from a “shithole” country. 

                I worry for my liberal friend, who, like my conservative friend, has a habit of speaking her mind.  She doesn’t wear a gun but exercises her freedom of speech at every opportunity.  People are being tear-gassed for exercising what they felt was a constitutional right to speak, to protest what they feel is an injustice.

                We have lost the right to bear arms, we have lost the right to speak freely, and we have lost the right to protest. For exercising those rights, two people have been shot, and a little boy is traumatized by a horror he will carry for the rest of his life.

                The First Amendment provides several rights protections: to express ideas through speech and the press, to assemble or gather with a group to protest or for other reasons, and to ask the government to fix problems. It also protects the right to religious beliefs and practices. It prevents the government from creating or favoring a religion.

                The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.

                The Third Amendment prevents the government from forcing homeowners to allow soldiers to use their homes. Before the Revolutionary War, laws gave British soldiers the right to take over private homes.

                The Fourth Amendment bars the government from unreasonable search and seizure of an individual or their private property.

                The Fifth Amendment provides several protections for people accused of crimes. It states that serious criminal charges must be started by a grand jury.  A person cannot be tried twice for the same offense (double jeopardy) or have property taken away without just compensation. People have the right against self-incrimination and cannot be imprisoned without due process of law (fair procedures and trials).

                The Sixth Amendment provides additional protection to people accused of crimes, such as the right to a speedy and public trial, trial by an impartial jury in criminal cases, and to be informed of criminal charges. Witnesses must face the accused, and the accused is allowed his or her own witnesses and to be represented by a lawyer.

                The Seventh Amendment extends the right to a jury trial in Federal civil cases.

                The Eighth Amendment bars excessive bail and fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

                The Ninth Amendment states that listing specific rights in the Constitution does not mean that people do not have other rights that have not been spelled out.

                The Tenth Amendment says that the Federal Government only has those powers delegated in the Constitution. If it isn’t listed, it belongs to the states or to the people.

                I am always uncomfortable talking about politics.  It’s a quick way to lose friends and create arguments.  I think I will end this with a quote from George Orwell:

When I see a policeman with a club beating a man on the ground, I don't have to ask whose side I'm on.