Dianne Hoffstead gave a brief, impassioned speech.

Yesterday John and several memebers of HACC (Hawthorne Area Community Council) took their struggles downtown to City Hall where they met with a large group of various people, like City Council Members, Police Officers, Lawyers, etc. We’ve been to a few HACC meetings in North where they have tried to bring these city officials into North so they can address their neighborhood problems in person. Though there has been much improvement, there is still great concern that many issues are not being dealt with, and so HACC decided to take their business directly to the city officials.

From what I saw, the meeting was frustrating for some of main players, like John and Jeff Skrenes and Valeria and Peter, to name a few.

I got the idea that some John and company felt their issues were being merely acknowledged, only to be put on the back-burner indefinitely or simply brushed under the carpet.

Inspector Martin talked at length about bridging the gap between citizen and police force, and how much “progress” has been made in Hawthorne on this front. I put the word “progress” in quotations only because of something that happened directly after the meeting:

I went outside to shoot people leaving the building, just some b-roll in case we needed it later. There was a handful of youth (black males) hanging out doing whatever outside the front doors, basically keeping to themselves in the 15 minutes I was out there. Nearby, another handful of youth (black females) were doing the same thing. After shooting a little video of folks leaving, I ran inside and put the camera away for the night. Then I went back outside and was hanging out at the curb with Miss Pettiford and her friend, reassuring them that Gabe and I would give them a ride home (their ride either left or never showed up).

Then a police squad car pulled up.  These two cops were young (late 20’s to early 30’s) white males. During the following interaction, I had to literally stop watching and remind myself that these two were actually police officers:

They walked directly up to the black males, aggressively asking “What up?” “What are you doing here?”

Okay, I thought, they’ve been called in because maybe these kids are disturbing the peace or something (which they certainly didn’t seem to be while I was out there).

They were paying a lot of attention to one young man (we’ll call him Mike), the hard-ass of the group (meaning, the one with the biggest mouth), and it started to spiral downward pretty quickly; the cops were clearly picking a fight. They wanted to get into it with these kids and were behaving like a couple of high school football players. For some reason I feel like I should point out that both the cops were “beefy” in build - like they regularly lift weights or are ex-military or something. Also, they were both very short - does this account for their overly aggressive (compensating) behavior? They looked like the assholes you avoid at bar-close, the kind of guys who are always getting into meaningless, something-to-prove fights with other ridiculously insecure males.

By this point I (and the group of black female youth) had wandered over and could hear everything being said. The cops never asked the kids to leave, or asked to see what was in Mike’s bag, etc. I distincly overheard one of them telling Mike that he was a “nobody,” and that “you don’t fucking matter, you’re nothing.”

The stark contrast between these two idiots and Inspector Martin was staggering. I also noticed how relaxed all of the youth were during this confrontation, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that happens on a nightly basis.

Again, never once did they actually instruct the kids to DO anything. There was no clear reason as to why they even showed up in the first place.

Of course, Mike, being disrespectful and young and brave and pissed off and out to prove something, never shut his mouth, and as the two cops were finally walking away - after many verbal threats and insults directed at Mike - he mumbled something under his breath.

Suddenly, one of these jerk-ass thick-necked jokers immediately turned around, ran at Mike, and JACKED HIM, TAKING HIM DOWN HARD. The other tough-guy-with-the-gun-and-billy-club-and-taser-that-he-always-had-his-hand-resting-on ran over and helped pin Mike down. They held him down and were hissing threats in his ear, assuring Mike that he’d live to regret it if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.

The cops never once asked these kids to leave, only threatened Mike over and over until they couldn’t control themselves.

They got up and Mike popped back onto his feet, his mouth running immediately (”You’re just pissed ’cause you didn’t find anything on me,” etc). The cops kept threatening to take him down again, to kick his ass, until finally they left, probably realizing that they had no real case against Mike or any of the other kids.

Left North in a really bad mood that night, despite the cool vibes at the annual meeting.

Obviously the city has plenty of problems on its plate, especially problems revolving around the housing crisis, but still; there was a certain lawyer and a certain city council person who were either overly concerned about what could and could not be said out loud at a public meeting or who simply cut people off and curtly moved onto the next subject.

This cop, and the other one in the above picture with John, were very interesting to me. They had this world-weary demeanor the entire time, partially due to having been overworked during the RNC, and possibly also due to the fact that it might be frustrating to hear ordinary citizens bringing up problems that they are well aware of and might - it’s possible - not be able to do anything about as quickly as said citizens might feel they should be able to.

Not many people (from the Northside) left the meeting in a very good mood.

Thank Christ almighty that the RNC is over and we can get back to our regularly scheduled production. Gabe and I (and John, incidentally) had major convention obligations last week. While we were hammering out video after video after video with Roxane Battle for MinnPost, John was in his element protesting all day every day, making his own videos, and BLOGGING CLOSE TO 100 TIMES IN A WEEK about it. Guy is prolific.

Gabe and I parked in the lot outside the Bangkok Market. I don’t know if it’s John’s constant praise of the place or my own budding frugality, but this place is starting to get to me. I went inside while Gabe shot some b-roll and bought: A little can of Thai Coffee, a huge pack of orange wafers, some sweet potato crisps, and a sandwich, all for less than 6 dollars! When I asked the guy what was in the sandwich, he shrugged. I said, “Really? What is it, pork? Beef? Shrimp? Something else?” He said he honestly didn’t know but just ate one and loved it. Having witnessed what John has eaten in the past (including pig testicles), I was skeptical but chowed down anyway. It was great! I thought I detected something liver-esque in there, but it didn’t much matter.

We noticed, while waiting for John and Juley to show up, that the clouds have been awesome lately…

Anyhow, we finally found them and today John was DETERMINED to find a house and make an offer. We visited several properties around the area. Most were pretty average. Some were just plain disgusting. One was really nice, though, and John made an immediate offer.

You can kind of see how the place isn’t completely vandalized and torn apart and left for dead. John calls it the “Willow Haven,” because there’s a giant willow tree in the front yard (off screen).

Something funny happened in the back yard of this house. I was following John to the garage (which was really quite nice inside, even had some tools left in it) and we turned to go back to the yard. Then Gabe, to stay out of the shot, sprints off camera behind the garage. Juley, seemingly always on edge over in North, follows suit because she thinks Gabe is actually running away from some kind of danger. We were like “What? What are you running from?” We turn the corner and Gabe is just cracking up and Juley’s kind of giggling at herself.

John, as you can see here, loved the inside of the house. For a moment (this moment) he thought the chandelier was the real antique deal. But, much to his chagrin, it was plastic and lame. But the house was in fantastic shape considering the list price (less than 20 grand, folks). The block seemed quiet and peaceful as well.

Other houses weren’t as nice. Other blocks weren’t as chill, either. One particular block had a ton of action happening while the four of us were sitting in the car on the side of the road, John going over paperwork and Juley on the phone. The house they were supposed to look at wasn’t open and was a weird electric blue color and was absolutely potent with bad vibes in my amateur opinion. Nearby, literally 25 people were lurking around in the street and on the sidewalks and near cars that were pulling up for quick interactions. Juley finally said, “Let’s go, a mob is forming.”