Inside the resistance with Will Stancil
"It's something I could do to keep them from stealing my neighbors."
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The Trump regime’s brutal and ongoing occupation of Minneapolis and the greater Twin Cities area has put this community to the test. Countless folks have risen to the challenge and sprung into action to protect their neighbors.
Among them is Will Stancil, who has provided a remarkable and very public example of courageous Minnesotan resistance.
Not so long ago, Stancil — a civil rights attorney, advocate, and 2024 candidate for a Minnesota House seat — was best known as a social media influencer who regularly got into spirited (and often heated) debates about progressive politics. In recent weeks, however, he’s gained prominence nationally as a symbol of Minneapolis’s stubborn and well-organized grassroots resistance to Trump’s thugs.
Stancil tirelessly tracks DHS vehicles in his Honda Fit, filming agents when they stop to harass or detain people. Officers have gone as far as to send him an unsubtle message by driving him right to where he lives.
A few days ago, Stancil was stopped by agents who threatened to arrest him but quickly stood down as he explained his rights.
“I will continue to follow you. I have a constitutional right to do so,” he said. “You should arrest me now because I will continue to follow you.”
Stancil has also put his body directly on the line, including in the immediate aftermath of the murder of Alex Pretti when he filmed as DHS agents peppered him and other protesters with munitions.
“They’re shooting at me. They’re shooting at me! Oh, you stupid thugs, what are you doing?!” Stancil yelled. “You killed someone, not us!”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Stancil remains somewhat of a controversial figure. He announced last week that he was removed from his neighborhood rapid response group due to a disagreement about tactics. (He says the beef stemmed from him talking to the press, which other members thought was an ill-advised move.)
And on the same day that he was pelted by DHS officers, Stancil was sucker punched by a protester who was upset about the fact he was “filming faces.”
We recently connected with Stancil to talk about the anti-ICE mobilization in Minneapolis, his activism, the safety precautions he takes, why he thinks the Trump administration is fighting a losing battle, and more.
“They seem to have thought they could come in here with big guns and intimidate everyone, and then we would all just sort of run away. That didn’t happen,” he said. “When Renee Good was killed, our community response like tripled in size overnight. So did the number of our community watches.”
“I don’t see any way out for them that isn’t some kind of defeat or retreat, even as they do a lot of damage in the meantime.”
A full transcript of Stancil’s conversation with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Thor Benson
What inspired you to go out and observe ICE and get so heavily involved?
Will Stancil
I live here and love my neighborhood. I just felt it’s something I could do to keep them from stealing my neighbors.
One of the things we’ve seen with the rapid response and the neighborhood response is a lot of people just don’t want to talk about what they’re doing at all. But I realized that once you start talking, people pay a lot more attention to what’s happening here. That’s what ultimately creates pressure for good — building a documentary record, letting people know, bearing witness to what’s going on here in Minneapolis.
Thor Benson
On the ground, how does it work it for people who want to get involved? Is there some kind of community network where people can just start helping?
Will Stancil
There are community meetings, but it’s massively decentralized. For instance, I’m in the Uptown neighborhood and part of what I believe to be the primary Uptown rapid response network. But I’ve learned that there are smaller ones in this same neighborhood that I didn’t even know existed. [Editor’s note: We talked with Stancil before he announced he was kicked out of his local rapid response network, but he told us he’s already been working with other groups.]
It’s very decentralized, and it’s not like anyone is setting jurisdictional boundaries for the different networks. They’ve all got standardized practices at this point. You end up linking to the others, and you drift into where your particular talents or capacity best fits.
It’s a very strange environment. And one of the things that I’ve been vocal about — and a lot of people are pretty mad at me about this — is that I think there’s a secrecy culture around this that’s unnecessary and probably a little bit detrimental to the whole enterprise. I don’t even know the real identities of most of the people in my network. For instance, I kind of suspect I knew whoever Alex Pretti was. He was in my zone when he was killed, and he was along our main patrol route, so I think it was probably in our rapid response.
But I don’t know that for sure. I don’t know who he was. I don’t know his pseudonym, and some people change them frequently. It’s a little strange. On the other hand, there are people who have pseudonyms who you see every day and they stick with the same ones. They start to feel like comrades and friends.
Thor Benson
What ways have you figured out to protect yourself while you’re doing this kind of work?
Will Stancil
The way I see it — this is my little security rant — people exert a lot of energy just trying to be anonymous. But it’s a massive waste of time. These channels aren’t very secure. Anyone who wants to quietly infiltrate them can do so in probably a matter of hours at most. I’m sure they all have federal observers in there recording everything. The way you protect yourself is not by trying to be anonymous, but by behaving in a way that you know isn’t putting you at risk.
Don’t break any laws, especially big ones. I mean, we play a little fast and loose with traffic laws following these guys, but not too bad. Definitely never make an aggressive move toward a federal agent. Don’t obstruct them. You can’t physically obstruct them in any way, but you can just get behind them and observe them. Always record everything. Preserve the recordings.
People say, “Get rid of your phone, don’t record anything. Put your phone in a Faraday bag,” and it’s like, no, that’s not helping you at all. You need to have your camera out. You need to be recording everything. You need to have other people recording as well, and you need to share those recordings freely.
Another thing I think is really important is don’t take a weapon. All the major episodes of violence I’ve heard about or have seen seem to be arbitrary. They start shoving you, hitting you, pepper spraying you, they’ll knock you down. They’ll detain you just randomly for doing something that you’ve done 20 times already. I’ve seen others take a co-pilot observer. If you’re with someone, it makes it safer. They seem more willing to aggressively confront people who are alone.
Thor Benson
I’ve seen a lot of posts from people saying we don’t know what it’s like on the ground in Minneapolis, that people are so angry and they’re organizing together. What are you seeing out in the community that people might not understand from social media?
Will Stancil
It’s very hard to see on social media the sort of totality, the unanimity of the opposition. It’s everybody you know. It doesn’t really matter where you are on the political spectrum. Doesn’t matter if you’re a business owner or barista or a school teacher.
If you’re on the ground, you see what they’re doing. It’s the only thing people talk about. It’s at every intersection, on every storefront. When are they going to leave? When’s it going to end? Everyone is furious, everyone is depressed. It’s just been absolutely awful. It’s been brutal.
Thor Benson
What do you think has made Minneapolis a particular flash point of resistance?
Will Stancil
It’s a high social trust city and state. People here care about their neighbors. It’s very community-minded. One of the issues I have when I’m driving behind these ICE cars is everyone’s driving like a Minnesotan, which is very carefully, obeying all traffic laws, going the speed limit.
Our immigrant communities here are pretty well integrated, they’ve been here a long time, and they’re really part of the social fabric. There’s a long-standing tradition in Minnesota of civic engagement and civic mindedness. We’re one of the highest voting states in the country. Everyone is very political.
The Trump administration caused this. They came in here like an occupying army. That’s what it feels like and that’s how they’re conducting themselves. No one in Minneapolis believes for a second the pretense that this is about fraud or immigration enforcement or whatever. It’s absurd when you see an armed detachment of 20 guys unload from a caravan at a gas station and deploy a bunch of tear gas into a crowd while Greg Bovino poses for cameras.
They’re letting the natives know that they think we’re inferior to them. In that sense, being invaded from the outside has galvanized the entire city, and really much of the region, against what’s happening here.
Thor Benson
There’s been a lot of mocking of ICE agents for slipping on ice. Do you think the cold is a good ally for you in this?
Will Stancil
Probably, because ICE guys are pretty miserable. I don’t think morale is particularly high for them. They’re freezing, they’re getting shouted at. They literally can’t go anywhere without being tailed by five cars. They get out of their cars and immediately a crowd of 100 people is gonna form, shouting at them, blowing whistles as loud as they can.
On top of that, they are in these crappy little coats or even hoodies. It’s negative 15 out. I mean, they’re getting frostbite. But it also makes my job as an observer a little harder because your window frosts over. You can’t read plates, and everyone’s wearing a face mask, so you can’t identify the ICE people quite as easily.
One thing they like to do is take snow and pile it onto their license plate so you can’t read them. But overall, it’s probably making them inclined to leave. I mean, if I was in ICE right now, I’d be thinking I could probably go work private security and make basically the same money.
Thor Benson
How do you think leaders like Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey are doing in handling all this?
Will Stancil
I was quite upset with the congressional leadership, at least until recently, because they didn’t seem to want to admit that what ICE is doing is not really immigration enforcement. The city and state leaders have correctly referred to this as an occupation.
They have not tried to downplay the scale of it in any way. They’ve been firmly opposed to them being here. There has been, obviously, a lot of people in the community who want Walz to deploy the National Guard to basically fight ICE, or have the local police do it. Well, DHS outnumbers the police like five to one. They also have much bigger guns. They’re very heavily armed.
It’s not totally clear to me what the local and the state elected officials can do. Obviously, a shootout with the federal government is not a road we want to go down. That’s not gonna make things better here in Minneapolis.
Thor Benson
Ultimately, do you feel like the city and state is winning this fight?
Will Stancil
I do. I’ve felt that way since the first few days of the occupation. The reason why is we just outnumbered them so greatly. We’re organized, and they basically go home at five o’clock.
They’re here for paychecks. They’re here on a mission. They seem to have thought they could come in here with big guns and intimidate everyone, and then we would all just sort of run away. That didn’t happen. When Renee Good was killed, our community response like tripled in size overnight. So did the number of our community watches.
They didn’t have an answer at that point. What are they gonna do? Ultimately, there’s so many more of us than there are of them. I don’t see any way out for them that isn’t some kind of defeat or retreat, even as they do a lot of damage in the meantime.
That’s it for today
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It occurs to me that if a Democrat President had sent in armed federal agents into a deeply Republican state (I know that's close to inconceivable) the angry Republican public would have included eople with assault weapons shooting the Feds and God only knows how it would have ended. The ICE thugs are lucky that the Democrat mob are a lot smarter and less exteme than they are.
My take from Mr. Stancil's comments is this: there is strength in numbers; the more numbers, the more strength. When the brave citizens of MSP far outnumber the ICE goons, ultimately the resistance wins although much damage is done in the meantime.
Slightly off-topic, last night I was speaking to a friend of mine in Canada (the only sane country on North America). In a previous post on PN or another site I made a comment that the people of MSP should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I mentioned that to Adrienne and she gave me the good news that the nomination has already been submitted. How did I miss that?
Just imagine the rage and whining that would ensue if the patriots of MSP were to win the prize coveted by the deranged lunatic crybaby in the White House. I think it's called throwing oneself out.