Popular Unrest and Looting |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Popular Unrest and Looting
Photograph Source: Fibonacci Blue – CC BY 4.0
On December 1, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiated “Operating Metro Surge” in Minneapolis, MN. It deployed personnel from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies.
On January 23, 2026, a general strike took place in Minneapolis, MN, involving some 700 business closures and an estimated 15,000 people protesting Metro Surge.
Now, as the fourth month of the Metro Surge is underway, what is most remarkable is that there has been only one reported occurrence of looting. The only reported cases of looting took place on January 15th when Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) vehicles were attacked by locals.
This is far different than the response to the protests that occurred following the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. In response, Pres. Donald Trump tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Such a response was expressed in the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of four police officers for the beating of Rodney King. The riot led to more than 1,000 buildings being destroyed with damage estimated at $1 billion, while the local “Koreatown” community suffered $850 million worth of damage, half in Korean-owned businesses.
As the ’92 L.A. riots raged, Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, warned: “People are looting because they are not part of the system at all anymore.” He added, “They do not share our values, and their children are growing up in a culture alien from ours: without family, without neighborhood, without church, without support.”
Vicky Osterweil’s study, In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action (Hachette, 2020), offers a radical critique of an often strongly criticized mass, popular action. She argues that stealing goods and destroying property are direct, pragmatic strategies of wealth redistribution. She........