明尼苏达州布鲁克林中心——随着明尼阿波利斯郊区抗议活动的加剧，一名警察开枪打死了道特·赖特，一群黑人加入了旨在维持和平和防止抗议升级为暴力的人群。
自周日以来，每天晚上都有数百人聚集在戒备森严的布鲁克林中心警察局外，当时白人前警官金·波特在一次交通堵塞中射杀了这名20岁的黑人司机。尽管市长呼吁执法部门和抗议者缩减他们的策略，但夜晚往往以投掷物品、催泪瓦斯和逮捕告终。
人群边缘的黑人穿着黄色防护背心，这表明他们是明尼苏达自由战士组织的成员。该组织是在去年乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)去世后的骚乱期间，为明尼阿波利斯北部街区提供安全保障而成立的。他们并不羞于塑造一个强有力的形象——该组织在脸书的页面上展示了成员们手持攻击式武器的姿势，并将自己描述为“精英安全部队”——但周五，自由战士似乎没有武装，并表示他们只是打算鼓励和平抗议。
当几个人开始敲击保护布鲁克林中心警察局的栅栏时，自由战士们通过对讲机相互交流。他们拒绝透露他们组里有多少人。
最近几天晚上，自由战士们穿着防弹衣和深色衣服，列队穿过人群，绕过挥舞着雨伞的示威者，沿着双层外围安全围栏制造隔离。他们的被动战术旨在缓和紧张局势，防止煽动者向前推进，并在准备好胡椒球和低致命性海绵榴弹发射器的情况下激怒立正的执法官员。
“我们可以保持和平，”36岁的前美国海军陆战队队员蒂龙·哈特韦尔说，他是该组织的成员。“这个团体中总有人想要煽动一些事情，”他补充说，向警察投掷物体会分散他们对正义的呼吁，并消耗运动的能量。
明尼阿波利斯很紧张——一边看着前警官德里克·肖万因弗洛伊德之死而受审，一边看着赖特被枪杀而摇摇欲坠。哈特韦尔说，在此期间，自由战士正试图推动种族正义运动，同时遏制经常严重影响少数民族社区的暴力和破坏。
“这是这个国家历史上非常困难的时期，”美国众议员马克辛·沃特斯说，他是来自加利福尼亚的民主党人，周六参加了抗议活动。“我们必须让人们知道，除非我们在这些案件中获得正义，否则我们不会满意。”
这位82岁的国会女议员谴责当局设定的晚上11点宵禁是镇压示威的一种方式，并鼓励大约150人的人群“留在街上”。
哈特韦尔说，但当地居民也遭受了执法人员和示威者之间的夜间冲突。他指着布鲁克林中心警察局对面的公寓，那里的居民抱怨催泪瓦斯流入他们的家中。
弗洛伊德死后，全国有色人种协进会呼吁武装人员组织起来，保护他们的社区免受抢劫和纵火，自由战士就是在这之后成立的。哈特韦尔说，一群群白人已经进入以黑人为主的社区，骚扰儿童。
他们还与市政府和警察局建立了关系。伦敦金融城发言人莎拉·麦肯齐(Sarah McKenzie)表示，该组织与自由战士成员有几个“正式和非正式的关系”，但该组织没有资助或与该组织签订合同，因为它是一个武装团体。
然而，一些示威者表示，这些联系意味着自由战士是在警察的命令下行动的，在要求他们承担责任方面不够积极。
自由战士本周与携带雨伞的示威者发生冲突，意图激怒执法人员。周六，该组织成员移除了一群试图切断警察部门外连接围栏的链条的示威者。
在晚上的大部分时间里，警察局外的街道比以前的夜晚更加压抑——抗议者高呼口号，辱骂警察，但有时也会随着音乐起舞。
执法部门也没有使用他们前几天晚上用过的闪光弹和海绵手榴弹。宵禁过后，执法人员没有向人群推进;相反，它大多自行消散。
另一群抗议者试图采取不同的策略，前往明尼苏达州斯蒂尔沃特，在华盛顿县检察官皮特·奥尔普特的家中抗议，敦促他对波特提出更严厉的指控。大约有100人的人群在他的街区街道上游行。
抗议活动的组织者之一、律师兼活动家内基马·利维·阿姆斯特朗(Nekima Levy Armstrong)表示，奥尔普特曾一度走出家门，解释他的办公室为何指控波特犯有二级过失杀人罪，而不是更严重的谋杀罪。
她称赞他与抗议者接触，她说弗洛伊德死后，亨内平县检察官迈克·弗里曼从未发生过这种事情。明尼苏达州司法部长最终接管了起诉，弗里曼在频繁抗议后卖掉了他的房子。
但利维·阿姆斯特朗表示，他们不会放松对奥尔普特的压力，他说，“我们承诺继续与他对话，直到我们看到一些谋杀指控。”
In Minneapolis, armed patrol group tries to keep the peace
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. -- As protests intensified in the Minneapolis suburb where a police officer fatally shot Daunte Wright, a group of Black men joined the crowd intent on keeping the peace and preventing protests from escalating into violence.
Hundreds of people have gathered outside the heavily guarded Brooklyn Center police station every night since Sunday, when former Officer Kim Potter, who is white, shot the 20-year-old Black motorist during a traffic stop. Despite the mayor's calls for law enforcement and protesters to scale back their tactics, the nights have often ended in objects hurled, tear gas and arrests.
The Black men at the edge of the crowd wear yellow patches on protective vests that identify them as members of the Minnesota Freedom Fighters, a group formed to provide security in Minneapolis' north side neighborhoods during unrest following the death of George Floyd last year. They are not shy about casting a forceful image — the group's Facebook page features members posing with assault-style weapons and describes itself as an “elite security unit” — but on Friday the Freedom Fighters didn't appear to be armed and said they intended only to encourage peaceful protesting.
As several people began to rattle a fence protecting the Brooklyn Center police department, the Freedom Fighters communicated to each other over walkie-talkies. They declined to say how many are in their group.
On recent nights, the Freedom Fighters have moved through the crowd in formation, wearing body armor and dark clothing, weaving past umbrella-wielding demonstrators to create separation along a double-layer perimeter security fence. Their passive tactics are intended to deescalate the tension, preventing agitators from pressing forward and provoking the law enforcement officers standing at attention with pepper-ball and less-lethal sponge grenade launchers at the ready.
“We can keep it peaceful,” said Tyrone Hartwell, a 36-year-old former U.S. Marine who belongs to the group. “There's always somebody in the group that wants to incite something," adding that throwing objects at the police takes the focus away from their calls for justice and saps energy from the movement.
Minneapolis is on edge — simultaneously watching the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin in Floyd's death and reeling from the shooting of Wright. In the midst of that, Hartwell said the Freedom Fighters are trying to push the movement for racial justice forward, while keeping at bay the violence and destruction that often acutely affects minority communities.
“This is a very difficult time in the history of this country,” said U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California who joined the protest on Saturday. “We have to let people know that we are not going to be satisfied unless we get justice in these cases.”
The 82-year-old congresswoman decried the 11 p.m. curfew set by authorities as a way to tamp down demonstrations and encouraged the crowd of roughly 150 people to “stay in the street.”
But local residents have also suffered from the nightly clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators, Hartwell said. He pointed to the apartments across the street from the Brooklyn Center police department, where residents have complained of tear gas streaming into their homes.
The Freedom Fighters formed after the NAACP put out a call for armed men to organize and protect their neighborhoods from looting and arson following Floyd's death. Hartwell said groups of white people had come into predominantly Black communities and harassed children.
They have also formed relationships with the city government and police department. City spokeswoman Sarah McKenzie said there are several “formal and informal relationships" with members of the Freedom Fighters, but it does not fund or contract with the organization because it is an armed group.
However, some demonstrators said those ties mean the Freedom Fighters act at the behest of the police and are not aggressive enough in calling them to account.
The Freedom Fighters have clashed this week with umbrella-carrying demonstrators intent on provoking law enforcement officers. On Saturday, members of the group removed a group of demonstrators who had tried to cut the chains connecting the fencing outside the police department.
For much of the night, the street outside the police department was more subdued than in previous nights — protesters chanted and spat insults towards police, but at times also danced to music.
Law enforcement also refrained from firing the flash-bang canisters and sponge grenades they had employed on previous nights. And as curfew passed, law enforcement officers did not advance on the crowd; instead, it mostly dissipated on its own.
Another group of protesters tried a different tack by traveling to Stillwater, Minnesota, to protest at the home of Washington County Attorney Pete Orput to push him to bring more severe charges against Potter. A crowd of roughly 100 people marched through the streets of his neighborhood.
One of the organizers of the protest, lawyer and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, said Orput came out of his home at one point to explain why his office charged Potter with second-degree manslaughter, instead of more severe murder charges.
She credited him with engaging with the protesters, something she said never happened with Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman after Floyd died. The Minnesota Attorney General eventually took over prosecution, and Freeman sold his home after frequent protests.
But Levy Armstrong indicated they would not let up the pressure on Orput, saying, “We are committed to continuing to have conversations with him until we see some murder charges."
