The "outside agitator" thing is complicated. We know now that vast majority of people being arrested are Minnesotan. But don't have data on where in Minnesota they're from Frankly, the neighbors in Whittier I spoke to last night considered the armed kid from Maplewood an outsider
Relatedly, during the protests at the 4th Precinct over the Jamar Clark killing in 2015, dudes from the suburbs drove into town to start violence in the encampment. They had explicitly racist motivations, which we know because they posted about their plans online first.
There is currently a Bloomington man sitting in prison because he chose to be an outside agitator at a Minneapolis Black Lives Matter protest.
mprnews.org/story/2017/04/…
mprnews.org/story/2017/04/…
This is all really important context that it's crucial the national media understand. It can be simultaneously true that there are white supremacist agitators starting violence at these protests AND that most of the people arrested are Minnesotan.
And that's even before we get into data questions like ... what percentage of people being arrested are likely to represent outside agitators that do exist? That is likely a Venn Diagram. But how much? Who knows.
Umbrella Man isn't in jail yet.
And for the record, from what I have seen and interviews I've done ... I absolutely believe that there are both white supremacists AND a different sort of anti-government activist whose youth & appearance would get them branded leftists, whether or not that's accurate
It's inaccurate to say "both sides of the political spectrum" because neither of these two groups are likely to fit into a neat, binary political spectrum.
