In her classic 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, pioneering urbanologist Jane Jacobs advised that the key to safe cities is “more eyes on the street.” She advocated that the best way to get these was to have neighborhoods filled with stores and restaurants. With local business providing a multitude of reasons for people to be active in city street life, eyes on the street would follow. It was these eyes that were mentioned by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in his January 14 primetime media appeal for the public to witness and document the increasingly horrific actions of the agency known as ICE, the once celebrated U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.
Increasingly known for daily video footage of seemingly arbitrary and brutal force, used by masked ICE agents against shoppers and workers at retail shops and restaurants, Walz urged shoppers to “take out that phone and hit record.” The public has been horrified by the killing of Renee Good, an unarmed 37-year-old mother of three and an American citizen, who was shot multiple times in the face by an ICE agent in her own Minneapolis neighborhood. But the footage of ICE brutality is everywhere, and much of it is occurring in retail establishments.
