Minneapolis 2026 & Derry 1972
A chara.
There are differences between what happened in Minneapolis on Saturday, January 24 and what happened in Derry on Sunday, January 30, 1972. But there are also too many similarities to ignore. Thirteen protestors were shot dead by British Paratroopers 54 years ago. A second American citizen was killed eleven days ago after a run in with federal officers.
Bloody Sunday is what the 1972 massacre is called. A march through the streets of Derry demanding civil rights and an end to the no-trial jailing of activist Catholics (Internment) was met with an armed response. Thirteen dead. (A 14th victim died four months later.) Fifteen wounded. The Brits said they were fired on. Four paratroopers were treated for gunshot wounds. No guns were ever found.
Sporting events were reschduled and Memorials were held in Derry Sunday.
Bloody Sunday victims. Names below.
Meanwhile in Minnesota
Alex Petti, 37, was shot to death in late January by agents of the Border Patrol assigned to the Minneapolis immigration enforcement sweeps. Renee Good, also 37, was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on January 7 in the early days of the ongoing operation.
Similarities and differences – BRITS OUT! ICE OUT!
There were no phones with cameras to capture the action back in 1972. But there’s plenty of film footage shot by intrepid television news photographers. These ten minutes of raw footage capture the chaos. Note the thousands of men, women and children dressed-in-their-Sunday-Mass-clothes who went out that afternoon for a non-violent protest. It’s chilling to watch the priest who tells the camera,” they seem to be very dead,” when asked about the casualties.
Thousands of ordinary people fed up enough to take to the streets. Sound familiar?
Demonstrators gather at the intersection of Nicollet Avenue and W 26th Street near the site where a man identified as Alex Pretti was fatally shot by federal agents trying to detain him, in Minneapolis,
Bloody Sunday - The 2002 Movie
In addition to the news footage of that day in 1972, there’s a movie that was released 30 years after the events of Jan. 30 called Bloody Sunday. It’s not a documentary, but it sure feels like one. BRITS OUT! can be heard as the troops converge on the marchers; the same way ICE OUT! can be heard whenever enough aggrieved Minneapolis citizens gather.
In Derry and Minneapolis, the authorities attempted to control the narrative. Brazenly. By blaming the victims. The Catholic protestors were all armed hooligans dead set on killing British troops, insisted their commander. Renee Good and Alex Petti were terrorists; assassins targeting federal law enforcement officers, according to multiple members of Team Trump.
The major difference in the fatally unfortunate confrontations is that while the British Prime Minister David Cameron eventually apologized for Bloody Sunday atr his government spent millions investigating what happened, it’s unlikely the American public will ever see that kind of accountability. An apology from Trump to the families of Alex Petti and Renee Good? Equally unlikely.
Another glaring similarity is the talk among the soldiers we hear in the movie and what we can make out on phone videos today. Adrenaline and weapons dominate conversation. In both cases, soldiers were stationed far from home and citizens of their own country wanted them gone. Their fear and anxiety carrying out a misbegotten mission against civilians is palpable. Why the politicians and senior officers who make the big money put the soldiers in harm’s way is seldom even mentioned.
The paratroopers assigned to the area were untrained for their policing duties and were already in the midst of a volatile situation. ''Tell the lads we want plenty of arrests today'' is a challenge begging to be answered with violence. NY Times review of Bloody Sunday
The Numbers Game
In both cases, rules of engagement were replaced by quotas. “Arrest 200 to 300 of those hooligans,” was the order to British troops. Three thousand arrests a day is the target for America's mass deportation operation; it was set by Trump aide Stephen Miller in May of 2025.
One of the major differences, something we haven’t yet seen in Minneapolis that we saw after the massacre in Derry, is a huge surge in enlistments to the resistance. Several historians and journalists have documented the recruiting boom for the IRA post massacre. In fact, no recruiting was necessary, British Paratroopers took care of that. Catholic men and women were “cueing up” in the hundreds, many with one thing in mind, to defend against another Bloody Sunday.
Victims, Video and Sources
Names of the dead victims of Bloody Sunday pictured above. "Hundreds of people took part in a march in Derry on Sunday, from Creggan shops to Free Derry Corner in the Bogside to remember those killed on Bloody Sunday.VICTIMS - The victims, top row (l to r): Patrick Doherty, Gerald Donaghey, John Duddy, Hugh Gilmour, Michael Kelly, Michael McDaid and Kevin McElhinney. Bottom row : Bernard McGuigan, Gerard McKinney, William McKinney, William Nash, James Wray and John Young [BBC]
BOOK: Eyewitness: Bloody Sunday by Don Mullan. Long before the British government talked to the protestors, Mullan told their stories which refuted the fake narrative out out by the Brits. Director Paul Greengrass based his movie on the book and thought so much of the author that he gave Mullan a small role in he film as a priest.
Bloody Sunday Memorials in Derry
All those investigations! The BBC has a good backgrounder.
“This is not a rebel song, this is Sunday Bloody Sunday.” If you thought the early U2 song was a protest against the British role in Bloody Sunday, you would be wrong. As Bono tried to explain every time the band played, the anthem condemns sectarian violence on all sides. Thus the white flag he waved on stage. Rolling Stone got his thoughts on the song way back in June of 1983. Bono was still being called Bonovox, a name he shortened by the time Sunday Bloody Sunday was released. Good move.
Video: Live at Red Rocks Ampitheater. You won't believe how young the members of the band look.