The Walkout
It is negative four degrees in St. Paul today, but the cold didn’t stop them. At 1:00 PM, the classrooms of Central High, Harding, and Washington Tech emptied out. They didn’t leave for a break; they left because they are watching their community being dismantled.
Nearly 2,000 students flooded the streets, marching toward the State Capitol. Their chants—“Books not Borders” and “Justice for Renee”—echoed off the government buildings, a direct response to the “Metro Surge” operation that has turned the Twin Cities into a militarized zone and led to the fatal shooting of Renee Good just days ago.
But as the youth attempted to cross the Wabasha Street Bridge, the state stopped pretending this was a democracy.
