A California lawyer returns home to Minneapolis to fight for civil rights

How do you find it? loss?

If you find them, how can you help?

Oakland civil rights attorney James Cook has been on the ground in Minnesota for months trying to find answers to these questions.

Cook, a fast-talking Minneapolis native who still lives part-time in the Twin Cities, is one of a handful of lawyers who have dropped everything (unpaid) to help protesters, immigrants and detained citizens caught up in the federal crackdown. Many of these people have been in danger of being deported, arrested, or even disappeared, at least for a while.

“They are leaders who are really helping people through this process,” the Minnesota school board member said. Chauntyll Allen he told me.

He is one of the protesters arrested at a local church and is accused by Pam Bondi of conspiring to deprive others of their constitutional rights. politicized Ministry of Justice, On Friday, journalist Don Lemon was arrested for the same incident. Cook is one of the attorneys currently representing Allen.

“This tells us that the judicial branch, or some of the judicial branches of our democracy, are willing to step forward and make sure our democracy remains strong,” Allen said of Cook and others like him.

While it is the images of conflict in the streets that captivate the media and audiences, it is lawyers like Cook who are fighting an existential battle to preserve the rule of law in the background, in a place where, to put it gently, the rule of law is increasingly opaque.

The legal work behind the detentions has been a largely overlooked battleground that will likely rage years after ICE leaves the streets, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of long and convoluted lawsuits in its wake.

Beyond the personal fates they will determine, the outcome of the legal case spearheaded by Cook and others will likely challenge any transparency and accountability that can be gained from these chaotic and troubling times.

This is a time-consuming and complex task that is vital not only for people but also for history.

Or, as Cook puts it, “I’ll be 10 years older when all this is resolved.”

Federal agents stand guard against a growing wall of protesters in Minneapolis on Jan. 24, just hours after Alex Pretti was shot by federal agents.

(For Caroline Yang/The Times)

Cook told me this as he was leaving. Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building Maybe where some prisoners were kept. This is hard to learn. A few years ago, as immigration enforcement increased in Minnesota during Trump’s first term, activists sought to rename the building, arguing that Whipple, the state’s first Protestant Episcopal bishop, was an advocate for the marginalized and did not want his name associated with what the feds were doing.

It didn’t work, but the movement’s slogan was: “What would Whipple do?” still resonates in this town where two American citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were fatally shot during a protest – events ugly enough to disturb Bruce. Springsteen wrote a song about them.

Even without The Boss’s new song, Cook is well aware that the guns federal agents carry are not for show. Just a few days earlier, on one of the first occasions he drove his beat-up truck toward the gate, federal guards in Whipple pointed their guns at him.

“I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to take my keys out of the ignition and put them on the ground. So please don’t shoot,'” he said.

They lowered the guns, but Cook was frightened; It was a feeling that was not easy at all.

Long before his law degree, as a punk-rock-loving teenager in the 1980s, when he had just graduated from Southwest High School, a public school not far from Whipple, a former coach convinced him to give up his college dreams and instead seek the chance to make the first Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Olympics.

The martial art did not eventually become an official Olympic sport, but the experience launched Cook into a professional boxing and kickboxing career; This took him to competitions around the world and taught him that fear is no reason to back down.

But Cook said, “Father Time is invincible.” “I got old and started losing fights and it was time for me to come back to life.”

This eventually led him to pursue a law degree in San Francisco; After interning as a public defender there, he decided he wanted to be a trial lawyer fighting in court.

Civil rights attorney James Cook has been doing charitable immigration work since the crackdown began in Minneapolis.

(For Caroline Yang/The Times)

He began cold calling John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer who is an icon of civil rights and police misconduct cases. Burris, who has been called the “Godfather of Police Trials,” was involved in the “Oakland Riders” case in 2000, in which police officers were revealed to have planted evidence. He also represented Rodney King, Oscar Grant’s family, and his family. Joseph Mann among others.

But Burris, a boxing fan, didn’t return Cook’s calls until the young lawyer offered him free tickets to one of his fights, which he was still doing on the side.

“Then I got a call back right away,” Cook said.

Burris said he was intrigued by Cook’s background as a fighter, but “I told James you can’t be a fighter and a lawyer. You can’t get punched in the head all the time.”

Cook did not follow this advice.

Still, Burris said, “What I admired was his persistence, because the type of business we’re in requires people who are dedicated, who are truly committed to the business, and he showed that kind of consistency and dedication.”

Cook has worked with Burris for more than 20 years, but until recently the labyrinth of the immigration system was not his area of ​​expertise. He said it was a crash course for him in the mysterious laws that determine who can stay in America and who can’t.

It was also a crash course in what a civil rights emergency would look like. In addition to his work searching for imprisoned immigrants, Cook spends a lot of time on the streets at protests, helping people understand their rights and limitations and seeing firsthand what’s happening.

“If you’ve ever wondered what you would do in Germany, now is the time,” he said. “It’s time to do something. People are being detained.”

In the hours after Pretti was shot, Cook was at the shooting site amid tear gas, offering legal aid to anyone who needed it and bearing witness to behavior that will almost certainly one day be scrutinized even if government leaders turn a blind eye to it now.

Law enforcement fired tear gas canisters as they worked to push back crowds and expand their perimeter in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.

(For Caroline Yang/The Times)

“The way officers chase people, beating, pepper-spraying and gassing protesters who are actually just protesting legally — these are all civil rights violations,” Burris said. “And so the law is the guardrails. So there must be lawyers who are ready to guard those guardrails and stand as captains, as I call them.”

Cook told me he was trying to calm protesters and prevent clashes. But people are crazy and determined. His biggest fear is the summer months; This is the period when hot weather may bring even larger crowds if control continues. He worries that the actions of federal agents could lead to anger against local police who enforce local laws, causing even more chaos.

“I always support cops as long as they do their job right,” Cook said.

For now, it takes one day, one case, one name.

Protesters hold up an upside-down American flag as law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis following the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents.

(For Caroline Yang/The Times)

On Tuesday, Cook passed through the gun checkpoint in Whipple with a list of about seven people who had been arrested by federal agents for one reason or another or were detained for unknown reasons and cannot be located at this time. They are not listed on the public online system used to track detainees, and their families and friends cannot hear from them.

If he’s lucky, Cook will get word on one or two people that they’re actually in there or at a detention center in Texas where many of them have been sent. But there will be more whose location is unknown. He’ll call, fill out the forms and come back tomorrow. And the day after that tomorrow.

“That’s what we do,” he said. “I’m always in it for the long term. So, you know, shoot, yeah that’s how it works.”