​Black Lives Matters comes to Fargo

As the Black Lives Matters movement takes center stage in the nation following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in Louisiana and Minnesota, at the hands of law enforcement, a chapter has formed in Fargo and begun protesting Downtown. While the protests in Fargo have been on a much smaller scale than others across the nation, organizers say their goals are to expose a mostly white community to some of the problems facing African-Americans in larger cities.

23-year-old college student Trevon Mooney helped to form the Black Lives Matter group in Fargo/Moorhead. He has lived in Fargo for five years. As he talked to his white friends about the recent incidents of police shooting black men across the nation, including in nearby Minnesota, he realized most of them couldn’t relate.

“Most of them don’t understand what we have to go through as young black men, young black people or even a minority every day. That’s kind of what made us get into this to get some exposure out there, make people understand that you don’t have to agree with this but this is what’s going on,” Mooney told HPR.

The protests have been mostly peaceful, Mooney said, aside from a few people yelling arguments or racial slurs. They are hoping to open a dialogue in the community.

“People try to throw statistics at us, that well more white people got killed than blacks. That may be true, but when you look at the percentage of black people to white people getting killed or any other race getting killed, we have the highest percentage. I don’t think they really understand that because there’s more white people here than black people so of course the numbers will be higher,” Mooney replied.

Overall, Mooney said that he felt African-Americans get a fair shake from police locally as compared to what minorities face nationwide in larger cities.

“I would say there is some racial profiling. With that being said, they treat us with regular protocol up here. I can honestly say being from Chicago and Illinois, these police officers up here in Fargo, North Dakota are some really great guys. Most of the cops are,” Mooney said.

As to why Black Lives Matter gets a bad reputation as a violent racist hate group, Mooney feels some of it is their own fault because of the tactics of a few members. He himself advocates peaceful, non-violent protests even if he understands why some activists use violence as a last resort method to get attention.

“I think it is has gotten a bad rap because of the way that some of us are handling it. They are rioting in their own cities which I think it is not the brightest thing because that’s where they live. That’s why I think up here it’s a lot better, we are trying to take it the peaceful route. Even though that’s easier said than done because most of these people are taunting us, they’re telling us this is not right, that’s frustrating when you hear,” Mooney replied. “Somebody comes home from work at 6pm, they are tired, they don’t want to deal with protesters in the middle of the highway. We can handle it a lot different. They can go to the side; we don’t have to disrupt anybody’s day to get our point across. I get tired of being peaceful too, but it’s the best way to go. It’s better than rioting. “

Fargo Deputy Police Chief Joe Anderson reached out to protest organizers to make sure they had everything they needed to facilitate the protests in a peaceful and lawful manner including permission from the property they were protesting on. A few officers went out and visited protesters as well and made sure things were going okay. Anderson feels relations between the Fargo Police Department and African-Americans have gone fairly well.

“Our stance in the Police Department is to be as transparent as possible and that means working with our ethnic leaders in the community to make sure their needs, their voices are being heard. But like I said, there’s always dissension and I am sure that there’s people out there that feel otherwise. For the most part, our interaction with the ethnic community, the minorities has been very positive. We’ve tried to incorporate them in various public forums that we’ve had and things have been successful but I certainly can’t speak for the masses,” Anderson told HPR.

Mooney said he doesn’t support blocking highways, as in the recent protest in Minneapolis, resulting in some arrests and police injuries, as well as condemnation from state and city leaders in Minnesota.

“I am willing to die for this but to put another person in a predicament where they almost have to kill you as far as they almost accidentally run you over or something like that, I am not with. Because what if somebody actually had an emergency and had to get their child to a hospital? I am not with blocking the highways,” Mooney remarked.

That’s the point where the Police Department steps in and arrests protesters, according to Anderson, when they break the laws and do things deemed no longer safe. The hard part for officers is determining when that is.

“We don’t want to see any of the protestors get hurt nor do we want to see any individuals who are necessarily involved in the protest get hurt as well, so that’s a fine line that law enforcement walks, is trying to figure out when a protest is gone too far and it’s no longer safe. That’s something that each individual department has to weigh, by the ways of their policies, their guidelines and whatever their circumstances are, at that time,” Anderson said.

Mooney has heard all the counter arguments against the Black Lives Matter movement and has a response for them. One frequent one is that those behind the movement should focus more on black on black crime rather than police incidents.

“The difference is the black on black crimes are regular people. We rely on police to protect us and they haven’t. That’s the big difference and I don’t think people understand that,” Mooney replied.

Another argument has been a bit of semantics about the name Black Lives Matter. Some people feel it should be All Lives Matter, or after the recent police shootings in Dallas, Blue Lives Matter. Mooney disagrees.

“The problem right now is that police are killing innocent young black men,” Mooney said “We get that all lives matter but it’s not every day that you see a white person getting killed by the police.”

Mooney recently attended Black Lives Matters protests in Minneapolis following the death of Philando Castile. The protests were much larger than Fargo’s, and one thing he noticed was that in both there were more white people protesting for the cause than black people.

“This is not their fight but they are fighting with us. They are in the ring of fire with us. So for that, we have to thank everybody whose fight this is, because they are standing with us, just like in the 60s they were with us. So I am really proud of the diversity that we have in both cities with the Black Lives Matter movement,” Mooney said.

Deputy Chief Anderson said there are some things officers and those who are pulled over or stopped by police can do to avoid trouble. While he couldn’t speak to what happened in the incidents in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights, he said there are some things for officers to remember.

“We certainly experience that all the time when we’re dealing with people on the street where when people are nervous, they tend to have habits of doing things that are comfortable and a lot of times that’s sticking their hands in their pockets. We have to be able to articulate that we had some sort of belief that, that person had a weapon on them. We can ask them, order them to keep their hands out of their pockets depending on the situation,” Anderson told HPR. “In a vehicle, we have a little bit more leeway, we can ask people to keep their hands on the steering wheel however there has to be some common sense that’s incorporated in as well.”

Anderson said there are a few things the Department does to establish trust between the police and minority citizens, who may have a negative view of law enforcement because of past interactions. They have a cultural liaison officer who interacts with New Americans coming into the community, about the difference between local laws and those of their home countries. They also have two community trust officers who act as ambassadors of the police department, and work to engage with them in as many situations as possible.

“Their goal is to build trust between law enforcement and the community, because not everyone has a good relationship with law enforcement, so we understand those barriers that took years to build aren’t just going to come down overnight. It requires a lot of work on both sides. We have to gain that trust. It takes one bad decision or one bad action by an officer and that trust is gone,” Anderson remarked.

In addition, another goal, as directed by Fargo Police Chief David Todd, is to get officers out of their squad cars and into the public. With a high call load, that can become difficult because officers are busy, but it is a goal that is widely shared.

“In our community meetings that we’ve had, that’s been some of the things that’s been emphasized by the community is, they like seeing squad cars drive around their neighborhoods. But the next step is to get those officers out of the squad cars and walking around the communities, start walking around the neighborhoods and not just being a face behind the badge. The community wants to know a little bit about their police officers as well -- that, we’re trying to do,” Anderson told us.

Fargo organizer Trevon Mooney agreed that the recent shootings of five police officers in a Dallas protest has hurt the Black Lives Matter movement. But he said they are continuing to offer a peaceful message in response.

“We’re trying to send a message -- up here in Fargo, at least -- that we are all human beings, we all have rights, there should be no color looked at, we’re all brothers and sisters.”