Restraint

Jan 11, 2026

Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of our 50501 CO newsletter!

In this newsletter, we discuss this week’s events in Minnesota. In addition, you’ll find information on upcoming activities from the 50501 calendar, actions you can take outside of protesting, and also find out about additional ways to connect with us.

See you on the streets! ✊✊✊

Actions and Activities

(The below list contains details on all actions this week and next week which have been submitted to our 50501 CO calendar; click the link above for more details and the full calendar)

Arvada

1/18: 11:00am - Weekly Resistance Rally *Weather Permitting* (80th and Wadsworth in Arvada (Safeway))

Denver

1/14: 9:00am - 1:00pm - De-ICE: 2026 Legislative Session Opening (Colorado State Capitol West Steps)
1/17: 12:00 - 3:00pm - One Year is Enough (State Capitol)
1/17: 3:00 - 6:00pm - Joy is Resistance Glow Dance Party! (Capitol West Steps, immediately following the DENCAT Protest at 200 E. Colfax Avenue)

Fort Collins

1/13: 3:15 - 5:00pm - WEEKLY Corner Protest Tues/Thu (Corner of College & Drake)
1/15: 3:15 - 5:00pm - WEEKLY Corner Protest Tues/Thu (Corner of College & Drake)
1/20: 3:15 - 5:00pm - WEEKLY Corner Protest Tues/Thu (Corner of College & Drake)
1/22: 3:15 - 5:00pm - WEEKLY Corner Protest Tues/Thu (Corner of College & Drake)

Loveland

1/17: 10:00am - 12:00pm - Stand Up Loveland! (1440 N Lincoln Ave)
1/24: 10:00am - 12:00pm - Stand Up Loveland! (1440 N Lincoln Ave)

Trinidad

1/19: 11:00am - 1:00pm - "I Have a Dream" Rally and Food Drive (Intersection of Main and Santa Fe Trail)

Restraint, Under Pressure

One of the quietest things Star Trek ever taught me is that the Federation is always hunting for a way not to use violence. “Phasers set to stun” isn’t a catchphrase. It’s an entire worldview: the point of power is restraint.

Because once force becomes the default, it doesn’t stay “limited” or “targeted” for long. It spreads. It excuses itself. It starts writing its own rules. And the rest of society gets trained, slowly, to accept the new baseline.

That’s why the Minneapolis ICE shooting this week lands with so much weight. A U.S. citizen, Renee Nicole Good, is dead after an encounter with federal immigration officers during a large operation. Federal officials quickly framed the shooting as justified and used “domestic terrorism” language. Local and state officials disputed that framing, and video in public circulation has only intensified the argument. Even if you don’t know what to believe yet about the seconds leading up to the gunfire, the aftermath is already telling us something important.

Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says it was told it would jointly investigate with the FBI, responded in good faith, and then was cut off. The BCA says the U.S. Attorney’s Office reversed course, and that the state would no longer have access to case materials, scene evidence, or investigative interviews. Without full access, the BCA withdrew.

That’s not a paperwork squabble. That’s legitimacy collapsing in real time.

In a healthy system, the investigation after a fatal use of force is designed to earn public trust. It should be independent enough to be credible, transparent enough to be reviewable, and grounded enough that both the public and the family can believe the result wasn’t prewritten. When local and state investigators are blocked from the evidence pipeline and the federal system effectively controls the narrative and the proof, trust doesn’t just erode. It detonates. People fill in the gaps with fear, rage, and conspiracy because the process stopped doing its job.

And zoom out a step. This wasn’t a routine traffic stop with a local cop in a squad car. This was federal immigration enforcement in a major operation, with the administration deploying a huge federal presence. In plain English, that’s a national force moving through a U.S. city, insulated from local accountability, with a civilian dead at the end of it.

Whatever happened in those seconds, that outcome is fundamentally un-American.

Not because America has never done ugly things. It has. But because the American promise, the one we pretend to teach in civics class, is that force answers to law, and law answers to the people. When a federal enforcement arm can operate like it’s above local oversight, and then take control of the fact-finding afterward, you don’t have “public safety.” You have a national power asserting that it gets to police itself.

Now here’s where we need discipline.

We do not escalate. We do not give them the show they want. We do not provide the pretext for more force, more crackdowns, more emergency powers, more political theater dressed up as security. Our job is to be so visibly committed to nonviolence and due process that people inside institutions, including law enforcement, feel permission to choose restraint. The goal is to make it easier for someone in a uniform to say, “No. I’m not doing that.”

Governor Tim Walz called this an “inflection point,” even a “McCarthy moment,” invoking the old question: have you no decency?

If this is an inflection point, it won’t be because one side yells louder. It’ll be because the public insists on a few baseline standards that should never be controversial:

A transparent investigation with evidence access and public confidence.
Clear, enforceable limits on use of force.
Real oversight that doesn’t vanish the moment the badge says “federal.”

Star Trek would call that restraint. Regular people should call it what it is: the minimum price of living in a free country.

Non-Protest Actions Bingo

The below bingo card contains a list of actions you can take (other than protesting) to help further the cause. If you get a bingo, tag us on social media to let us know!