St. Louis had barely finished digging itself out from a historic snowstorm when some locals moved on to the next task at hand: protesting the Trump administration’s deadly crackdown in Minnesota. The death of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 mobilized hundreds of protestors downtown on Tuesday and led to a candlelight vigil in Arnold on Wednesday.
At the downtown protest, many people called for a general strike. They also demanded that Enterprise stop leasing cars to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
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Some small businesses have announced they’ll close today in solidarity with the general strike, which is seeking an end to ICE. The Social Goods Marketplace and Lamiaa Botanicals posted on Instagram that they would be closed. “Seeing the brutality against our neighbors in Minneapolis and beyond, this feels like one small thing we can do to stand up for the kind of country and the kind of world we want to live in,” their post read. Others are staying open but sharing ways they intend to support the cause.
The protests continue this weekend. On Saturday, a coalition of local bike clubs, advocacy organizations, and bike shops is hosting a memorial ride, inspired by a call from the bike shop Pretti frequented in Minneapolis. The ride begins at the Roman Pavilion in Tower Grove Park at 1 p.m. And, this weekend, the American Federation of Government Employees labor union has organized a vigil at the VA Hospital on Sunday (Pretti was both a member of the union and a nurse at the VA).
Chris Ward, a writer who lives in St. Louis County and participated in the protest downtown on Tuesday, says he was struck by how many younger people were there, some at their first protest. Of Pretti’s death, he says, “We know what we saw. And it’s a real line in the sand about truth. We saw this with our own eyes, we saw this from 80 angles. And which side are you on here? You know, are you with us or against us?”
Ward shrugs off the idea that frigid weather this week made protesting too difficult. “I would say the weather is more terrible in Minnesota,” he says.
