David Ignell: In Minneapolis, cop-triggering and mayhem have overtaken the city

 

By DAVID IGNELL

If My people,

Which are called by My Name

Shall humble themselves

Shall humble themselves

And pray

The lyrics of this classic church hymn drifted into my mind while researching the recent chaotic and tragic events in Minneapolis.  Inspired by Scripture, 2 Chronicles 7:14, this timeless wisdom has been solemnly sung in American churches for centuries.

I have memories of my now departed parents singing this beautiful hymn at the church they helped build in the 1960s at the corner of Fourth and Franklin in downtown Juneau.

Still today I can visualize their complete reverence to the Holy, humbling themselves before God, and praying.

My parents’ roots extended back to Minneapolis. They met at North Central Bible Institute, an Assembly of God college, just a couple miles from the place where Renee Good took her final breath.

Oh, how that city has fallen in the past 75 years. A Google search indicates that in 2007 83% of Minnesotans identified as Christian.  By 2024, that number dropped to 63% with 29% identifying as having no religion.

The foreseeable result of this lack of a moral compass?  Rampant welfare and childcare fraud estimated in the billions, widespread public corruption, elected leaders who openly defy our nation’s mandate to stop the free fall into chaos.

Today Minneapolis reminds me of Jerusalem before its fall 2600 years ago – a city on the eve of destruction.  The prophet Isaiah tried to warn the people before their fall,

‘Your rulers are rogues

And cronies of thieves,

Every one avid for presents

And greedy for gifts.”

But the thought that has lodged in my mind is this: Would Renee Good still be alive if she and her wife Rebecca had started out that fateful day by humbling themselves and praying?

I think most people would readily say yes.  If My people…

It has been reported that the Goods were Christians, attended church, and were advocates for justice.  But the words they used to engage the ICE officers that fateful morning are neither humble nor reverent towards sworn officers simply trying to do their jobs in a cacophony of chaos.

“You want to come at us?”

“You want to come at us?”

“I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.”

“Go ahead.” (beckoning the officer to come at her)

Renee’s wife, Rebecca is saying these things to an ICE officer while filming him with her camera, inches from his face.  Her demeanor caught on camera displays defiance, antagonism, and hatred. It looks like she’s trying to bait him into attacking her.

She’s not humble and she’s not praying. Seconds later, her wife is dead.

 What went wrong?

Perhaps somewhere along the line the Goods got caught up with the wrong crowd. Perhaps they ignored the wisdom of Psalms 1, which begins, “Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or taken the path of sinners, or joined the company of the insolent; rather, the teaching of the Lord is his delight, and he studies that teaching day and night.”

On that fateful morning of Jan. 7, 2026, it’s been reported that the Goods deliberately inserted themselves into the company of the insolent. Parking their car in the middle of the street, escalating the chaos, antagonizing federal agents trying to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.

Perhaps the Goods were deluded into believing their protest actions were protected by the First Amendment. But the First Amendment has its limits and there’s a lot of gray area created by the ebbs and flows of judges selected not by God, but by man.

For instance, you can’t falsely yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre. Preservation of human life is the overriding principle.  A century ago, false claims of fire in several instances led to hundreds of people being killed in the ensuing panics.

Also banned is speech that is directed to and likely to incite or produce “imminent lawless action”.  Not only does the Goods’ behavior make a beeline into this gray area, but also so does the speech of the promoters who influenced the Goods to take such action.

While the investigations are underway, some facts are already clear. The whistles, horns, and loud noises being implemented in Minneapolis and other American cities bear the trademark of psychological warfare directed against ICE agents. Their use has been actively promoted in our country for the last several years by the likes of anarchists and ANTIFA – nearly invisible terrorist cells that have infiltrated and infested our communities.

The shrills of the whistles are intended to be deliberately destabilizing – to provoke law enforcement. To induce adrenaline spikes, confusion, and over time, fatigue. To effectively condition anxiety. The whistles also serve to amplify identity and dissolve individuality among those demonstrating – classic crowd entrainment psychology.

The intended result? One term for it is “cop triggering.”

Participating in this kind of behavior looks a lot more like “aiding and abetting” illegal activity than protected free speech.

This lawlessness running rampant through sectors of America needs to stop. We need to return to God, to our roots founded on Judeo-Christian principles.  To humble ourselves and pray.

We need to send the chaos back to the shores of the elitist and communist nations who have worked diligently for the past century to seed it here and erode our strength.  We also need to stand as a beacon of light and God-ordained morality for people trapped in those countries who dream of a better day in their lands.

How then should we treat foreigners?  The Old Testament is consistently clear – the Books of Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Zechariah instruct us to love the foreigner and not oppress them.

But foreigners also owe a reciprocal duty – to obey the laws of the land. Abraham was a foreigner who prospered in Canaan because he lived according to the laws of his hosts and earned their respect.  When Israel later became a nation, foreigners were required to follow its laws.

Foreigners were only allowed to become a native of the land if they participated in the covenant meal of Passover.  To partake, the foreigner and all the males with him needed to be circumcised.  It was a total commitment of loyalty to country and to God.

People who are in America illegally do not have a right to stay here. It’s that simple.

So who’s all behind all the mayhem that led to the Good’s fateful decision on Jan. 7?  Who persuades people like the Goods to put themselves into situations where death is a foreseeable consequence?  Are ANTIFA and anarchists solely to blame or do others also “aid and abet” the unlawfulness?

For instance, consider “mainstream” organizations like Amnesty International USA, which systematically blast out emails to millions of Americans, characterizing the actions of President Trump as “unlawful” and urging people to take action to “rein the Trump administration’s reckless abuses of the rights of immigrants and communities under the guise of immigration enforcement.”

Are you kidding me?  This baseless propaganda needs to be called out for exactly what it is.  And we must begin looking deeper.  What are the motives behind Amnesty International’s siren call – perhaps to achieve the long-standing Marxist goal of promoting the United Nations as the only hope for mankind?

Or is the underlying objective tied to something much darker, as the Russian Commissar of Education once stated, “We hate Christians and Christianity.  Even the best of them must be considered our worst enemies.  Christian love is an obstacle to the development of the revolution.  Down with love of one’s neighbor! What we want is hate…Only then will be conquer the universe.”

How many other Renee Goods are out there today, still breathing, but caught up in the web of propagated hate and anger that precedes death?  There’s still time to take an alternative course – to humble themselves and to pray.

If Amnesty really wanted to promote humanitarian principals, they should begin encouraging their members to immediately chart a new course – to humble themselves and pray – before more blood is spilled.  To pray for President Trump and the ICE agents who are faced with the monumental job of cleaning up decades of misguided policies by the political elite to gain power.

A 2018 study by MIT and Yale professors estimated there were over 22 million illegal immigrants in the United States.  And that was before the Biden Administration lax immigration policies were implemented.

President Trump did not create this problem.  But he’s trying to carry out the mandate of the majority of Americans who elected him to solve it.

Minneapolis, I’m praying for you to humble yourself and pray.  Seek God’s face, turn from your wicked ways, and He will heal your land.

Meanwhile, if Amnesty International wants to show its compassion and advocacy for human rights, then I challenge its members to go to my website, “poweredbyjustice.com” and familiarize themselves with the gross injustice in the wrongful conviction of Thomas Jack, Jr. of Hoonah Alaska.

Jack is an Alaskan Native who is unquestionably in America legally.  He was twice denied a jury of his peers, and in conjunction with a plethora of other due process violations, was railroaded by a biased and corrupt criminal justice system into a 50-year prison sentence.

Jack has been incarcerated for 15 years.  He’s a solid Christian man, with incredible faith.  Offered a plea deal of just 2 years, he turned it down.  Only an innocent man would do that.

A few years before Jack’s wrongful conviction, the US Commission on Civil Rights labeled Alaska as Racism’s Frontier.  Comparisons to the apartheid were drawn.  The Commission’s report is on my website.

During the Biden administration, the USCCR refused to do anything about Jack’s wrongful conviction despite my urging.  My guess is they figured Alaska Natives don’t carry enough political weight to swing elections.  The federal swamp occupied by the greedy runs deep.

This past summer I contacted US Sen. Chris Van Hollen and US Reps. Maxine Dexter, Yassamin Ansari, and Robert Garcia.  These elected representatives took their place on the national stage claiming they would fight for due process rights.

I asked them for help, but they didn’t care either.  Their noise was simply political theatre.

Ditto for Alaska Representative Andrew Gray from Anchorage, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who held a special hearing over the summer to investigate the due process rights of illegal immigrants housed by ICE in Alaska facilities.

Jack’s tribe stands in his support and has called for his immediate release by State of Alaska officials.  Will Amnesty support the resolution of the Hoonah Indian Association, a federally recognized tribe?

Amnesty, let’s find out. Is your organization about justice or chaos?

David Ignell was born and raised in Juneau where he currently resides.  He formerly practiced law in California state and federal courts and was a volunteer analyst for the California Innocence Project. He is currently a forensic journalist and recently wrote a book on the Alaska Grand Jury.

David Ignell: Liberal judges and the tyrants they become