Nothing is quite as it used to be along Nicollet Avenue.

The spot where Alex Pretti was gunned down by federal agents has been cordoned off by orange stakes and caution tape, appearing like a giant gash along the block between 26th and 27th streets.

“It’s almost like a loss of innocence for a part of the neighborhood that was just pure joy before,” said Aldona Martinka, a healthcare worker who has lived in the area for more than a decade.

The Jamaican restaurant and the thrift store along this stretch of Minneapolis’s Whittier neighborhood have transformed into community gathering spaces, open to mourners who have come from near and far. All along the corridor, also known as “Eat Street” due to the preponderance of restaurants and bars featuring global cuisines, restaurants are offering free food and handwarmers.

Each day, neighbors have come to Pretti’s memorial to refresh the flowers, re-arrange the handwritten cards and messages, and sprinkle salt along its edges to prevent the pavement from icing over.

Each evening, the block glows with candlelight and blooms with the amalgamated fragrance of dozens of candles – prayer lights and Dixie Scents and old Bed Bath & Beyond classics dug out from the backs of neighbors’ closets.

Each night, there is a different sort of performance or dedication. On Monday, Brass Solidarity – a band founded in 2021 in response to the murder of George Floyd – played a blaring rendition of Stand by Me as a crowd sang along. On Tuesday, Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli, a Mexica-Nahua cultural group based in St Paul, performed several dances in solidarity and remembrance. On Wednesday, hundreds arrived for a vigil organized by Pretti’s fellow nurses.

“Even throughout the day, you’ll find people here who start singing,” said Aisha Chughtai, a local city council member, as she stood across the street, facing the memorial.

Chughtai was home on Saturday when she found out that Pretti had been killed, and like many of her neighbors, immediately ran outside. “I just wanted to bear witness,” she said. “And I was trying to help my neighbors who were getting hit with irritants.”

Dozens of federal agents soon flooded into the street, she said, deploying teargas and projectiles at neighbors and demonstrators who had gathered as reports of the killing spread.

Martinka and her husband, by that afternoon, had rushed with their five-month-old baby to her mother’s house in downtown. On the TV, they saw the camera pan over the bike lane outside their home – the one where they had imagined their daughter would one day learn to cycle. It was engulfed in chemical smoke.

From the window of her mother’s apartment, she could see Nicollet Avenue and the fumes clouding over the whole street – an ominous gray cloud.

She worried about her neighbors, many of whom also had small children or babies, and how most of them probably weren’t able to escape. Many had avoided going out for weeks because they didn’t want to be profiled or arrested by immigration agents.

She thought about all the children breathing in those chemicals, which were inevitably seeping through the poorly sealed doors and windows of the neighborhood’s century-old homes.

Pretti’s killing was a heartbreak that came after weeks of heartbreak, said Chughtai. She had seen neighbors, constituents – including legal residents and refugees – violently arrested by federal agents.

Here in Whittier, many locals were either hunkering down inside because they feared arrest, or spending their free time outside, delivering groceries to neighbors, patrolling the street corners while wearing bright red and orange whistles, ready to blow an alert each time they spotted an immigration agent.

Chughtai had checked on the families of refugees who were arrested despite having a valid legal status, and tried to connect immigrant families with legal aid groups. She had joined other council members in calling for an eviction moratorium for constituents who couldn’t work, and thus couldn’t afford rent. On 21 January, federal agents had handcuffed and detained 15- and 16-year-old siblings outside a Whittier clinic, deployed teargas and projectiles, and arrested two bystanders.

“Every day, I go through waves of grief and anger,” Chughtai said.

After Pretti was killed, the Trump administration demoted the border patrol commander Gregory Bovino – the “commander at large” who had been the public face of the militarized operation in Minneapolis.

“It’s a testament to the power of people that we were able to whistle Bovino out of Minneapolis,” Chughtai said. “But this cruelty did not start with Greg Bovino and it certainly will not end with him.”

On Thursday, after border czar Tom Homan came to Minneapolis and delivered a speech committing to reduce the federal presence in the city, Chughtai was alerted that several agents had violently arrested another man, in a neighborhood just north of here. They had also deployed mace against several bystanders, she said: “It’s bullshit.”

What happened to Pretti – “an execution,” Chughai said – and the subsequent show of force by federal agents against demonstrators was a turning point. To many locals, it looked like a war zone outside their doorsteps.

Martinka and Chughtai – who are good friends and former roommates – must have eaten at Peninsula Malaysian Cuisine, the dusty orange edifice right behind the memorial site, dozens or hundreds of times, Martinka said. “It’s always been like, our comfort food.”

Martinka has spent a good deal of time next door as well, at the Cheapo Records, with her husband, leisurely flipping through stacks of records, VHS tapes and cassettes.

“I will never be able to walk by this corner again without thinking about this really horrible time for our neighborhood and our city,” she said.

Jeff Cowmeadow, proprietor of the Prodigal Public House, just off Nicollet, had walked over to the memorial and was having a smoke. “People come to this neighborhood for happiness: We have the art institute [Minneapolis Institute of Art], ethnic restaurants, massage, thrift store, record store,” he said before trailing off.

Cowmeadow was a pastor at the nearby Calvary church for 38 years before he retired to focus full-time on running the pub. Both jobs, he said, were essentially about building community.

In the aftermath of Pretti’s killing, Cowmeadow’s daughter rushed out to open up the bar to neighbors who were injured by the teargas and projectiles that federal agents launched against the crowd. Chughtai was there, helping people wash chemical irritants out of their eyes.

Many other restaurants and businesses along Nicollet did the same.

Asha, a healthcare worker who has been volunteering as a street medic over the past few weeks, rushed over with her medical kit as soon as she heard what was happening. The Guardian is not using her full name because she fears her work as a street medic could compromise her employment.

At first, she made laps around the site of the shooting, which federal agents had cordoned off. Periodically, the agents unleashed clouds of chemical irritants and projectiles toward a crowd of demonstrators, she said; they’d advance, arrest one or two people, drag them into their perimeter, and retreat. “It was back and forth, push and pull like this for hours,” she said. Eventually, she ducked into My Huong Kitchen.

The restaurant’s owner, Tracy Wong, was there ushering in protesters and press, some of whom were vomiting from exposure to the irritants. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she told them as they ducked inside.

Asha posted up there – along with several other medics – and was able to properly inspect the injured and help them rinse out their eyes in the restaurant’s restroom.

At one point, Wong, a petite woman with gold-streaked black hair whom several locals described as “the neighborhood auntie”, brought in piles of egg rolls from the kitchen and began distributing them. “I have been there a number of times before – they have really good pho,” said Asha, who used to live in the neighborhood. It was surreal, she said, seeing it transformed into a makeshift emergency medical center.

Samie Solina, a reporter for the local TV news station KARE-11, had run into My Huong Kitchen after nearly collapsing with exposure to irritants along with a colleague. After she posted a video about Wong’s kindness, customers came back that week in droves, leaving big tips and thank-you notes. “I don’t know – I am like, famous overnight!” said Wong, laughing.

Crowds from all over Minneapolis had booked out many of the restaurants along the avenue, which for weeks had been hurting for business. Many are owned and staffed by immigrants who had been unable to report to work due to the constant, overwhelming presence of immigration agents in the neighborhood.

The Copper Hen Cakery & Kitchen, a farmhouse restaurant that also transformed into a makeshift field hospital, once again filled with brunchers. Glam Doll Donuts, behind the bright pink edifice across from where Pretti was killed, reopened to long lines.

“​​The way that our community comes together in crisis – it’s a coming together, not a hunkering down,” Martinka said.

On Friday, Wong had styled her hair down. She had closed down the restaurant for the general strike, but was cooking up massive quantities of pho to give away. She had tasked a younger person to help her spread the word on Instagram.

Before a musician played a single note at First Avenue, the iconic venue in the heart of Minneapolis, seemingly every voice in the room on Friday afternoon was chanting the words “fuck ICE.” This was a Tom Morello concert, but even more than music, everyone was unified under the show’s banner: “a concert of solidarity & resistance to defend Minnesota.” This was a prelude to a larger protest just blocks away and a benefit for the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Everyone was already plenty fired up, so naturally, they came unglued when Morello revealed that his surprise guest was none other than Bruce Springsteen.

Two days after the release of his protest song “Streets of Minneapolis,” which very specifically references the killings of Good and Pretti by federal immigration agents under the Trump administration, Springsteen stood alone in the venue that Prince made famous. When the screaming fans finally got quiet, he discussed the song’s rapid creation and release before playing it for the first time in public. 

“So I write this song, and I recorded it the next day, and I sent it to Tom Morello,” he said. “Now I know Tom is an excitable man. I say, ‘Tom, what do you think? It’s kind of soapbox-y.’ And he says, ‘Bruce, nuance is wonderful, but sometimes, you have to kick them in the teeth.” He dedicated his performance to ”the people of Minneapolis, the people of Minnesota, and the people of our good country of the United States of America.” 

Springsteen’s solo acoustic performance of the song was understated compared to the production heard on the studio version, but back-up singers or a full band would’ve gotten in the way of the essential truth of the moment. Arguably the biggest rock star on the face of the planet made a surprise appearance in an occupied and embattled city, and here he was singing the names of their murdered neighbors — about the blood on the ice-covered pavement. Amid a vacuum in leadership at the highest level, here was the Boss pointing a finger directly at the responsible parties. This was certainly solidarity, and when he sang the words “Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” the crowd cheered emphatically. As the song wound down, cheers gave way to a chant spurred on by Springsteen himself: “ICE out now!”

It was an unbelievably generous moment that certainly defined the afternoon, but Morello and his band returned to the stage to rev up the power once again after that. Springsteen and his sometime bandmate traded verses and massive guitar solos on 1995’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” a song the pair have performed together numerous times. Morello lifted and inverted his guitar mid-solo to reveal the words “arrest the president” while Bruce beamed and laughed next to him. Every single person in the room seemed to be on the same page. 

All the musicians who’d graced the stage earlier returned for a closer of John Lennon’s “Power to the People,” but not before Morello proclaimed that we’d all experienced the greatest brunch-hour concert in history. Springsteen, Morello, and the rest stood smiling onstage as the house speakers blasted “Let’s Go Crazy.” 

It was an afternoon hinged entirely on the topics of protest and resistance. Morello’s own set featured union anthems and Woody Guthrie classics, and more importantly, fiery rhetoric. “Brothers and sisters, thank you for welcoming us to the battle of Minneapolis,” he opened. “Minneapolis is an inspiration to the entire nation. You have heroically stood up against ICE, stood up against Trump, stood up against this terrible rising tide of state terror. You have stood up for your neighbors and for yourselves and for democracy and for justice. Ain’t nobody comin’ to save us except us, and brothers and sisters, you are showing the way.” 

With a mention of the capital-R Revolution who made the room famous, Morello turned the mic stand around and urged the crowd to scream along to “Killing in the Name.” Prior to the special guest reveal at the end, this was the most ecstatic moment — a room of people screaming “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.” With all respect to the group performance of “This Land Is Your Land,” Al Di Meola’s solo acoustic shredding, and Rise Against’s cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Morello’s greatest gift to this crowd was an outlet for their deeply understandable rage. 

“I heard the Trump administration has claimed that outside agitators have come to Minneapolis to stir up trouble,” Morello said between songs, eliciting boos from the audience. “I would like to confirm that we are those outside agitators, and we’re gonna stir up a shit-ton of trouble.” The show wrapped up just after 2 p.m., and later, Morello walked out into the streets to join the protest. Well before any of the musicians grabbed their coats and made it out of the building, though, one audience member called out to the crowd that was freezing outside First Avenue to follow him and protest. A horde of people followed that dude’s lead — concrete evidence that the tenets of resistance didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Tom Morello set list:

“Killing in the Name”
“Soldier in the Army of Love”
“Hold the Line”
“One Man Revolution”
“Keep Going”
Instrumental medley
“Like a Stone”
“This Land is Your Land” (with Rise Against, Al Di Meola, and Ike Reilly)

Bruce Springsteen set list:

“Streets of Minneapolis””The Ghost of Tom Joad” (with Tom Morello)
“Power to the People” (with Tom Morello, Rise Against, Al Di Meola, and Ike Reilly)

The FBI is now leading the investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations branch supporting the investigation, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.