by Kyle Hooten
Protesters continue to occupy the street in front of a Stillwater, Minnesota, prosecutor’s home, over a week after their demonstrations against the attorney first grabbed headlines.
Pete Orput has served as the Washington County attorney for over a decade. He recently chose to pursue a manslaughter charge, as opposed to murder, in the case of Kim Potter, a former Brooklyn Center police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright earlier this month. Since Orput charged Potter, he has been subject to public vitriol leveled against him by protesters who disagree with his decision.
Livestreams of Monday’s demonstration show that BLM-affiliated individuals totally obstructed the street in front of Orput’s home with vehicles and even set up chairs, a podium and a sound truck in the roadway.
“We’re not out here being Minnesota nice,” one speaker said, standing at a podium directly in front of Orput’s driveway. “Gone are the days where we sit on the sidelines and we let people like Pete [Orput] rest comfortably, ’cause he don’t know when we’re gonna pop up in front of his doorstep.”
The Orput family seems to still occupy their besieged home, as the lawyer’s wife was spotted entering the house on Monday. However, it is unclear if and how they’re getting their vehicles in and out of their driveway.
It appears that the leaders of this week’s Stillwater protest are the same people who led the rally earlier this month, which ended in the arrest of a man who was barred from his own neighborhood by the demonstrators. Both the white van equipped with large outdoor speakers and the head organizer (both seen below) seem to be the same as the ones present last week.
Meanwhile, the Washington County attorney says he will not cave to the mob’s demands. “I greatly respect the First Amendment, but … I’m not going to succumb to pressure like that,” he said, according to the Star Tribune. “It’s about the most unethical thing a guy could do, and I’m not going to do it.”
Orput has directly interacted with the protesters outside his home, as did one of his neighbors. The neighbor and his wife traded slurs and insults with the BLM group. The man apparently works for the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) and has been placed “on investigatory leave,” per the DOC.
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Kyle Hooten is a former member of the Trump Presidential Administration where he served in the Department of Commerce as a speechwriter for the Secretary.
