Children play in the street on the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue. Many neighborhood children were meeting each other for the first time, since it previously was not safe enough for them to play in their front yards.
For several years, a residential block off of Lake Street in South Minneapolis was overrun with drug dealers and users. The relative privacy of a residential street coupled with close proximity to the foot traffic and activity of a gas station and smoke shop, made the area highly lucrative for dealers. Neighbors say the police responses were slow at best when called to clear people from the sidewalks or to intervene in violent situations.
May 25, 2020, now-former police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. In the unrest that followed, police response on the block stopped completely, and remained slow even months after riots stopped.
Several residents reported that when they called police, officers said that they couldn't arrive to respond, because their department had been "defunded." This was false. Their department had not been defunded, and actually recieved a budget increase in the months that followed.
On June 15, block resident Abdi Hassan, a 40-year-old Somali immigrant and father of four, saw his wife robbed at gunpoint in their backyard. As Hassan ran inside to get his gun, he heard the would-be robber shoot, and thought his wife had been shot. The man had actually fired into the air, and Hassan chased him out of the property. For him, this was the final straw. He and other neighbors set up an informal patrol that same night.
Abdi Hassan and Daniel Balmer discuss how to deploy a homemade bike tire spike to block of part of the sidewalk on the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue.
A car sits for several minutes across the street, pointing its headlights into the Lake Street checkpoint through the barricades on the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue. Patrol members recognized the car, saying it belonged to one of the dealers who had regularly done business on their block before the establishment of the watch.
Danny Ellis uses his binoculars to watch a car parked across the street shining its lights into the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue Wednesday, July 15, 2020.
Neighbors set up barriers at either side of the street to block dealers' cars, and set up a patrol constantly monitoring the barriers through the night every day for weeks, waiting for dealers to give up and find a new location, calling themselves a neighborhood militia.
The barriers and patrolling largely worked. Neighbors allowed their children to play in their front yards for the first time. Children who had lived across the street from each other were meeting for the first time ever, as their backyards had previously been the only safe places to play.
The barriers and constant vigilance were meant to be a temporary fix, but in the months following, neighbors said that police would decline to come when called. They said police cited City Council's vow to defund the police department as the reason, despite the fact that no funds had been taken from the police force at the time.
The barriers remain standing.
A version of this story ran in the Minnesota Reformer.
Abdi Hassan, 15, son of Abdi Hassan, 40, helps sweep the street on the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue, walking past a local repair shop. Neighbors said they were able to start cleaning up the sidewalks once they were no longer full of dealers and users. The business, like many others, hastily wrote signage showing that they are minority owned in order to dissuade rioters from damaging the property.
Art teacher Mina Leierwood, right, leads neighbors and their children in painting a telephone pole on the end of the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue. Leierwood lives closeby, and led the neighborhood children in art projects over the summer to help them build community and to process the compounding stresses of the summer.
Fasia Hassan shows her paint-covered hands after helping decorate a telephone pole at the end of the block.
A telephone pole on the Lake Street side of the block is painted and adorned with the images of different neighbors’ religions, as a symbol of the block’s protection
The night's patrol group, made up of block neighbors and other people from the surrounding area wanting to help, sits under a tarp near the active Lake Street barrier.
Daniel Balmer shows Abdi Hassan, 15, how to best use his baseball bat.
Daniel Balmer shows his motorcycle to two neighborhood children as he rides in from a nearby block to help with the night’s patrol, let in by other members who recognize him.
Abdi Hassan brings a homemade bike tire spike to block of part of the sidewalk on the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue Thursday, July 16, 2020. The night before, Hassan said a man with KKK tattoos came in on a bike and threatened the group, prompting them to reinforce the vehicle barrier a tire spike to deter bicycles and motorcycles.
Rachel Goyette replaces the barricades after letting a UPS truck come through, as neighborhood children set down scrap cardboard to sit on for an art class in the street behind the barricades.
Art teacher Mina Leierwood leads neighbor children in an evening art class in the street on the 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue. Leierwood led children in ways to decorate their spaces, painting on plywood left over from various businesses in the area that had boarded up their windows during rioting.
Art teacher Mina Leierwood, center, walks around to checks on her students as she leads an art class behind the barricades. Melissa Marjamaa, in pink, looks on as she takes a break from picking up trash along the sidewalk. She said she used to come through to pick up needles, and now mostly just picks up bottles and cans.
Neighbors discuss forming their own official neighborhood watch group during a block meeting on 17th Street, the block next to the now-blockaded 18th Avenue.
Dabby Dobbins, right, listens during a block meeting on 17th Street, the block next to the now-blockaded 2900 block. Neighbors there said much of 18th Avenue's crowd had begun to spill even more onto her block since the patrol began, prompting them to start their own patrol. Dobbins spoke about her young foster child losing sleep as he kept his own vigil out his window, concerned for anyone in danger down on the street.
Johanna Tovilla, 13, helps Salvador Ocampo fill out an affidavit to allow them to hang and enforce “No Trespassing” signs after a block meeting on 17th Street, the block next to the now-blockaded 2900 block of S. 18th Avenue.
Hand-drawn signs reading “We are united” and “We love our community” are displayed in a window next to a "No Trespassing" sign on the 2900 block S. 18th Avenue.