POLICE ARREST 17 ACTIVISTS
MINNEAPOLIS» Police arrested 17 activists who blocked a lightrail line carrying Super Bowl ticket holders to U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday in a protest against police brutality and privileges enjoyed by wealthy visitors that shut down trains for more than two hours.
Live video from the scene showed officers unlocking or cutting through locks the protesters had used to chain themselves to each other and to fencing at the West Bank Station on Metro Transit’s Green Line. The handcuffed activists were loaded onto a waiting bus. Metro Transit spokesman Howie Padilla said all 17 were cited for unlawful interference with transit and released.
No injuries were reported.
Metro Transit used buses to ferry passengers around the blockage, and Padilla said the agency was confident spectators would reach the game before the opening kickoff. The shutdown started about 2:15 p.m., and the stop was finally cleared about two hours later.
Padilla said Metro Transit respects people’s right to free speech and demonstration.
Chinyere Tutashinda, a spokeswoman for the activists, said they were protesting police brutality, as well as the light-rail lines being set aside Sunday solely for Super Bowl ticket holders. Nonticket holders had to use buses to get around the metro area instead.
The Green and Blue lines were a major route for many fans to get to Sunday’s game, with security screening done before passengers boarded.
The light-rail shutdown came as Black Lives Matter and several other groups staged rallies in Minneapolis to protest police brutality and corporate greed.
About 300 people gathered at a park as the temperature hovered around 2 above zero, with wind chill in the subzero teens, and marched peacefully a couple miles to the stadium, where most of them took a knee outside a security gate in imitation of Colin Kaepernick. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback started a movement when he began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racial inequality and police brutality.
“We kneel, we stand, we fight,” the protesters chanted. “If we don’t get no justice, you don’t get no peace.”
Squad cars cleared the streets ahead of the procession.
Trump salutes U.S. military.
FLA.» President WEST PALM BEACH, Donald Trump expressed appreciation for U.S. military service members on Super Bowl Sunday, saying their bravery and sacrifice help make occasions like the year’s mostwatched football game possible and renewing his criticism of NFL players who kneel during the playing of the national anthem.
“Though many of our nation’s service members are unable to be home with family and friends to enjoy this evening’s American tradition, they are always in our thoughts and prayers,” Trump said in a statement about the game shortly before the matchup between the defending New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles got underway.