Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Remember Those Awful Mall Cops Patrolling Uptown During the Unrest?
Investigative journalist Eamon Whalen took the time to figure out who they were, why they were there, and how their legacy lives on in this long—but really good!—read from Mother Jones. The business is called Conflict Resolution Group (CRG) and it’s run by war vet Nathan Seabrook.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, Seabrook’s company was tasked with keeping Seven Points in Uptown safe. But according to dozens of interviews, court docs, and police and military records obtained by Mother Jones, the group mainly did this by making people in the area feel unsafe. CRG employees brandished weapons, compiled info on regulars to send to police, and threatened to shoot protestors, whom Seabrook likened to jihadi terrorists.
“Seabrook and his crew often were the uncertainty,” writes Whalen. “The reporting shows how a lack of accountability for overseas military contractors can boomerang when veterans put their skills ‘into play’ in the homeland.”…