Normals know that you leave the cops alone when they’re making an arrest. Leftists, though, have created a new normal …

On Jan. 7, 2026, an extremist protester attempted to ram ICE agents in Minneapolis with her SUV, and subsequently died from gunshot wounds when agents appropriately responded to the threat.

She and her girlfriend had been on the scene for some time, objecting to the ongoing ICE action, harassing the agents as they were doing their job.

Leftists watch one video, from one perspective, and claim she was murdered; reasonable people watch an array of videos of the incident from several directions, and recognize it as self-defense on the part of the agents.

Many in the Left are understandably horrified, thinking, “that could have been me.” Some on the Left didn’t waste time mourning, knowing they can fundraise off this incident while the iron is hot.

Like all officer-involved deaths, there will be an internal investigation; the videos will be studied, witnesses will be interviewed, official determinations will be made. For now, at least, under the American system, the agent who fired at the charging vehicle is innocent until proven guilty.

But there are some things we can recognize from the incident right away, which should enlighten us about a nationwide problem.

These activists are not behaving rationally.

Normal people, when they see a police bust taking place, either leave the area or step back to watch from a safe distance. Whether it’s a mass arrest of a flash mob at a retail store, or police breaking up a late night brawl at a bar, even people who simply “can’t tear their eyes away from the train wreck,” at least manage to find the presence of mind to stay out of the policemen’s way.

But these activists, for nearly a year now, have often been getting close to the operations, as close as they can. We see them blowing whistles to warn criminals of the police presence. We see them jeering the agents, even throwing rocks or other projectiles at them, or just getting in their faces, trying to provoke a response.

In normal times, this would be recognized as insanity.

No matter whether you’re from a good law-abiding family or a mafia neighborhood, you are taught from childhood to always be deferential to law enforcement officers. Always.

You give them room, you stay out of their way, you don’t provoke them. If you’re stopped for a traffic ticket, you keep your hands where the police can see them so they don’t consider you a threat. If you see an arrest in progress, you cross the street so you don’t impede their work.

Everybody knows this.

From childhood.

But something has changed in recent years. As the BLM riots and the 1% riots — and the Antifa riots and the George Floyd riots — all spread and normalized violent demonstrations, the Left started giving their activist members a new kind of marching order:

The Left is now ordering its members to act up, to push the envelope with ICE and other forms of law enforcement. These foot soldiers of the radical Left aren’t thinking of blowing whistles and throwing hands, and blocking the street with their cars, all by themselves; they are following the precise instructions of their activist leadership.

Perhaps they aren’t bright enough to realize that when you interfere with law enforcement doing their job, it’s a crime.

Maybe they don’t have the sense to realize that visibly warning criminals that the police are after them can make them accomplices to those criminals, guilty of aiding and abetting an escape.

Or maybe they are bright enough to realize that what they’re doing is criminal – it’s not all that hard a concept to grasp – but they have been told they have nothing to fear, because the officials never prosecute these things.

Well, what these people are forgetting is that the American legal system is designed, as they say, not just for government and society, but also “for your own good.”

That is, we don’t just have laws against obstructing officers in the performance of their duty in order to help catch the criminals; we also have these laws because if you obstruct them in the pursuit of their job, you are also putting yourself in danger, and you’ll put other innocent bystanders in danger as well.

These protesters are the ones making these situations more dangerous, for all concerned. These protesters can claim all they want that federal law enforcement is “bringing chaos,” but they know it’s a lie. Leave them alone to do their job, and there would be no chaos.

It’s the protesters, getting in the way, blocking agents with their bodies or with their cars, alerting criminals that the police are after them, who make these situations volatile, increasing the odds of unnecessary injury or death, as just occurred in Minneapolis.

Watch the response by the Left in the days and weeks to come.

Clearly, the obvious reaction to today’s death should be for the Left to call on their members to stand down, to stop the harassment and provocation of ICE immediately. To cool both the rhetoric and the action right away, to prevent further bloodshed.

But what are the odds of that?

Watch the Left. You will see them fundraise off this unnecessary loss of one of their own. You will see them double down, and continue telling their members to blow their whistles, and position their vehicles, and do everything they can think of to be human obstacles.

Because the Left doesn’t really care about the safety of their own members (if they did, they wouldn’t have spent the past sixty years doing everything possible to stop the incarceration of street criminals). What they care about is disruption. Destruction. Lawlessness.

That’s what they campaign on. That’s what they fundraise on.

And when their members are injured or killed as a result of their own horrible advice, they can use these manufactured martyrdoms for PR.

Don’t believe me? Look at every other Marxist movement in history, from Lenin to Mao, from Castro to Pol Pot. The Left always devours its own. They have no more respect for the lives of their own members than they do for anyone else.

It’s just how Marxism works.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker. Read his book on the surprisingly numerous varieties of vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his biting political satires on the Biden-Harris years (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his 2024 collection of public policy essays, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available in eBook or paperback, exclusively on Amazon.

Image: Screen shot from X video

Related Topics: Leftists, Minnesota

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