The cowardly “officials” cancelled the protests, and 80,000 people proved that they don’t listen to spineless Democrats any more than treasonous MAGAs, and showed up anyway.
Craven Democrat politicians need to match the courage of their constituents, or find another job. It’s time for Democratic Warriors to step up.
What officials?
Capitol event organizers, who originally expected a turnout of 10,000 people, released this statement early Saturday afternoon:
"Out of an abundance of caution and in adherence to guidance from Governor Walz and the Minnesota State Patrol, all remaining No Kings events in Minnesota are being canceled immediately. This decision comes in light of the ongoing shelter-in-place order and the tragic shooting that targeted two elected officials and their spouses. We are doing this in accordance with local and state guidance given the suspect is still at large impersonating a police officer.
Our hearts are with the victims, their families, and the communities shaken by this violence. We are in close contact with our hosts, attendees, and state and local officials and remain committed to ensuring all other events around the country proceed peacefully and safely"
Fair enough. Thank you.
Around 80,000 people still showed up to protest at the MN capital today, so I don’t think what “officials” say matters.
Good.
The social contract is unraveling.
Important comment, this has been fraying for several years and now it’s unravelling.
The officials can get fucked. What an absolutely absurd and cowardly response.
Democrats being democrats
I’m so conflicted on this take. On one hand, it sounds a little accelerationist/tankie. On the other hand, you’re not wrong. But they are trying to protect lives by recognizing there is a literal serial murderer on the loose with not only the names and addresses of public officials, but also “no kings” rally flyers.
So it’s a fairly simple trolley problem question in the “what if” scenarios going through an actual concerned public official’s mind. It’s cool people showed up cause they all realized this dude was a coward and will only shoot people who are at an extreme disadvantage, and wouldn’t dare to go public with his violence cause there’s a chance he might get punched in the face a few dozen times before his homies in blue pull him out.
But you really can’t blame this public statement on “Democrats are cowards”, even though it is objectively true.
We can blame the officials. Don’t let the heckler’s veto work. It’s murder of course, but it’s also bullying. And capitulation only makes it worse next time. They’ll always have lunatics with guns.
That conflict is stemming from your cognitive dissonance.
You want to believe Democrats are the good guys, but every day we see more reasons why that’s not the case.
There really is only 1 party in the US: the party of the ruling class. Democrats and republicans work together to oppress everyone else.
Less and≥objectively evil.
That’s all I have to say in response to you fuckheads who created this fucking monstrosity.
And I’ll repeat this same line to everyone who tries this bullshit “bIt BoTh siDeS!!1!” Bullshit.
You are directly responsible for the murder of innocent people!
Sleep well tonight realizing you’re a terrible person exaggerating one side, and minimizing the other’s shortcomings.
Don’t hurt your back bending over backwards to eat your own ass you fascist enabling piece of shit!
Hey, blame everyone who voted for Hillary in the 2016 primary for why we have 2 trump presidencies.
The democrats showed where their loyalties lie: they’d rather have a fascist than a progressive so that’s what we get.
Good job doing your part to support the two-pronged strategy. It’s what makes you average and I don’t expect more from you people at this point.
Now, keep getting angry rather than admitting how you’re part of the problem.
This…
✌️
Yeah, people misunderstand how citizen protests work when they talk about protest organizers like they’re in charge. Maybe they filed some papers with city hall and did some promotion, but there’s no such thing as “protest leadership”.
Yup protests have no head to kill. So try as they may this will continue until we are sure no nazis are inside our political system.
If a protest requires permission it isn’t a protest.
In the US, generally, you aren’t so much asking permission as giving notice that your expecting a generate a crowd, despite the phrasing. Freedoms of speech, assembly and association are still a thing.
The purpose behind it is to give emergency services a heads up to minimize obstruction of normal or emergency traffic and to provide some level of crowd control to minimize the chance of flash stampedes. Like if some idiot sets off a firework, everyone thinks it’s a gunshot and started running.
Approval is generally automatic, but failure to go through the approval process could result in your peaceful protest turning into a riot, or being declared a riot.
Protests turn into riots when the police wanted to, exactly then, and very rarely before that point.
They were declared riots before they even started.
I was about to reply that today’s protests seem to have gone off peacefully till this article came up in my news feeds.
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/14/portland-police-ice-facility-riot/
As far as I know though, the Portland protest, and the assassinations of the Minnesota legislator, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, seem to have been the exceptions.
Today in SLC someone took a rifle to our march and shot a protestor. Last I heard the victim didn’t make it.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/06/14/crowd-gathers-salt-lake-city-march/
After the shots, everyone scattered and the shooter hid among others who were trying to shelter & take cover. Some hero noticed the rifle sticking out of his bag, grabbed the bag and called police over:
What was the shooting for? Was that guy confirmed to be the same shooter?
Wild times, regardless.
What was the shooting for?
No idea
Was that guy confirmed to be the same shooter?
Not confirmed, but from what I can tell several eyewitnesses noticed something fishy with his backpack. The OP of the video has been posting on Reddit /r/saltlakecity and /r/publicfreakout, and there’s another video just beforehand where people are talking about the backpack.
The events are very chaotic. What I can tell from eyewitnesses statements: the perp shot somebody (supposedly in the head), and someone in a yellow vest (yellow vests were either cops or security who was with the organizers) immediately drew a gun and shot the perp back (would explain why in some photos it looks like he’s bleeding, and cops / EMS are rendering medical aid). Eyewitnesses said after that, a plainclothes cop who was among the protesters also drew a gun too, but by then the perp had ran off.
Meanwhile (can see from security footage posted by the news), police swarm in maybe a minute? after the shooting.
Supposedly someone maybe saw the perp putting the rifle in his backpack, and when he went to hide among other protestors, the guy in the video grabbed his backpack to get it away from it, opened it, found the rifle, and called police over and pointed out the long hair guy. Pretty sure several people in the area the video was taken were also interviewed by police, and it was enough to arrest him.
All we know now is that police have 3 people in custody and have been asking for more photos / videos of the incident.
I was about a block away and I didn’t hear anything as I was focused on something else, but my coworker standing next to me heard at least one shot. Shortly after we saw a dozen people running, and then a couple dozen more and people yelled “active shooter”, and then we were running too. I ran a block, and shortly after that saw an unmarked cruiser fly in, and then a couple minutes later saw a van with riot police pull up back to the main area of the march. Riot police got out and just stood there basically, and eventually got the rest of the marching protestors moving away from the area with the shooting, and then got everyone to disperse. There was no violence between protestors and cops. After the shooting everyone seemed happy to disperse. Riot cops were really just helping to direct everyone away at that point.
My speculation: I think the shooting was politically motivated, and the shooter intended to shoot many more people, but did not expect such a quick response to his actions. The people responding including yellow vest guy, and the guy who grabbed the backpack probably saved many lives.
Edit: I saw there is now what looks like security cam footage of yellow vest guy shooting the perp
Edit: News story just published corroborates some of what I saw eyewitnesses say. Unfortunately it’s confirmed that the victim died. Police are saying the victim was essentially collateral damage, shot by a yellow vest who was attempting to stop the man with the rifle and the backpack. Really sad all around.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/06/15/marcher-wounded-no-kings-protest/
Yeah that sounds terrible and sad all around. Thanks for the details. There’s a lot to process and think about. Be safe.
Officials cancel all “No Kings” events
I don’t think it works like that, like it is in the fucking name.
That’s why 80,000 people showed up anyway
A good start.
11,000,000+ Nation Wide.
Neat so like 3% of people nation wide? Maybe a bit lower.
3.5% according to 50501.
350,000,000 roughly in the US and 11,000,000 in attendance. This is not hard math unless there are more then stated (always a possibility) it was 3.14%. I think the 3.5% is a joke about some other propaganda going around about how non-violent movements with 3.5% participation always succeed (not true).
I’m very out of the loop with this, I’m not from the USA. Which protests do we like, and which don’t we?
Officials cancelled anti-Trump protests after a Democrat representative was killed. (Trump is Republican.)
Which types you like probably hinges on how you feel about flak vested white supremacist militias, I guess.
Surprisingly, I’m not really in favour of them, the handful of pics vids I’ve seen didn’t have enough context…like there are Brits that are anti Farage cause he’s not authoritarian enough.
Oh yeah, tell me about it. You still get far-right protests against Israel where I’m from because while they like the genocide, they still hate Jews. Weird people are weird.
This protest is pro-democracy though.
Musk’s falling out with Farage was reportedly because he wasn’t rabidly far-right enough in the correct ways.
The “No Kings” protest was anti-Trump. Do with that what you will.
I’m assuming the handmaids are the good guys too? I’ve only really seen a handful of vids and not enough to get context.
People dressing up as handmaids from The Handmaid’s Tale are typically dressed that way as a form of protest against the conditions that would lead to Handmaid’s Tale becoming a reality. Which is typically anti-Christian nationalism but can also include anti-MAGA/Trump which …the lines there are blurry at best.
Thank you for your explanations, just wanted to be sure.
This will show the fascists that they have a means to shut down all protest.
They didn’t, people showed up all over the state. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/06/14/warnings-state-officials-following-shootings-no-kings-rallies-minnesota https://www.startribune.com/trump-protests-gear-up-around-minnesota-us/601371723
Showing up is not an end in itself
“You’ll all be protesting correctly when I decide what that means and you somehow meet the arbitrary bar I set at the same time.”
You’ll be protesting correctly when you effect change.
Well tough guy, where’s your truck bomb?
It’s called a Tesla and it’s a legitimate automotive choice.
Sorry, are you insisting that people from other countries need to come save you from the thing we’ve been telling you for decades was going to happen?
Lol this dude’s taking the piss. What a joke.
As a Minnesotan I’d be upset if officials didn’t make this announcement. They had an individual who killed 2 people and seriously injured 2 more, whose vehicle was found with No Kings protest flyers, and who had a manifesto that seemed to indicate they had plans for greater violence.
This is the kind of thing people should be warned about. It’s not like it stopped any/many from going but they’d be derelict in their responsibilities if they didn’t let people know.
Letting people know and trying to cancel a protest are two very different things.
You cannot surrender to terrorists.
Bullshit!
Exactly my thoughts. Like, this should make the protest larger, not stop it. This is exactly what they are protesting against, is it not?
If I am understanding it correctly, a stay at home order was issued because the shooter was still “at large” having shot at authorities and then fleeing. The time the protests was supposed to be was covered under the stay at home order.
I think the protests should happen if at all possible, but I understand not wanting people on the streets when there is a known gunman about.
If the protests against Trump are canceled because his supporters assassinate Democrats, it will encourage more assassinations.
No statewide stay at home order was issued.
Edit: added statewide to clarify. Source: am 'Sotan.
Removed by mod
Please don’t stalk me around Lemmy. I’ve reported this comment and I’ll be blocking you.
How tan?
1 gunman, thousands of protesters. Hmmm.
Right, the gunman might run into the crowd and loudly announce that he was going to shoot them before being wrestled to the ground, or the gunman might find a safe perch and fire indiscriminately into the crowd, causing casualties, panic and chaos, then melt away into the night.
Tough to say which one is more likely
Just wondering if you know how mass shootings happen? Cause you listed their preferred recipe.
The stay at home order was for one suburb where the assassin fled on foot.
The one in the area of the shootings was cancelled due to a stay at home order, but the one at the capitol 100% happened, although with a different tone and not all the speakers showed up.
Can we also cancel all the monarch bullshit this administration is doing too?
Not without killing someone, it seems.
They tried! We had the protest anyway! AG Ellison spoke and everything.
I was at the capital protest, didn’t even realize it was canceled until they started talking.
I was also at the Earth Day protest and I loved seeing way more people today. I didn’t do the march and it was awesome seeing the march come down the street toward the capital grounds.
I wish we could have had their planned schedule today but I’m glad they still did something and it was a good mix of protest and the somber reality of the assassinations.
Why was this posted three hours ago, after the protests had taken place already?
Sounds like something the king would want then to do.
