A couple of weeks ago on an unseasonably warm Thursday morning, a trio of these mule deer showed up in my garden. They wandered off before I could get a picture, but came back with six friends during the afternoon rush hour, maybe not a safe time for a herd of deer to be on Broadway. I followed them when they crossed into a neighbor's front yard. For a minute it seemed they might wander off to the north and east, which seemed a safer direction. But then they decided to come back to the driveway, close to the speeding cars and trucks. So, maybe because I didn't want to see any of my fellow mammals hurt (either these furry ones or the ones driving by), I walked out onto Broadway with my hand up. Southbound and northbound traffic, all 4 lanes of it, stopped. To my surprise, all the deer but one followed; maybe they'd wanted to graze at North Boulder Park, 3 blocks west, anyway. I motioned to the lone straggler, a male, and yelled "Come on." He did, and crossed safely. A BMW driver gave me a thumbs-up, and traffic flow resumed.
Why am I telling this story? Because what might have seemed like a foolish action to others seemed like the only thing to do. I didn't want to witness an accident, and it seemed like simple kindness to prevent one. Maybe my six years of Saturdays volunteering in the vet clinic at the local Humane Society* came into play. There was some risk involved, but it seemed worth it. On the subject of kindness and risk, it would seem that in everyday human interactions, kindness should not be punished, but it recently was, in Minneapolis. On January 24 in that city, Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse employed by the Veterans Administration, was filming a demonstration against Operation Metro Surge on his phone when he went to the aid of a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by ICE* agents. When he attempted to shield her with his own body, he was pepper-sprayed and thrown to the ground by ICE agents, who fired at least 10 shots at close range, with 6 shots fired after Mr. Pretti's body had gone motionless. His last words to the woman he'd tried to protect were, "Are you okay?" As they had following the ICE killing of Renée Good on January 7, federal officials refused access to the crime scene by Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. In the case of Ms. Good's shooting by an ICE agent, a medical doctor offering to aid the victim was ordered to stand back by the shooter. Minnesota authorities recently sued, and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to block the Dept. of Homeland Security "from destroying or altering evidence."
Gauging public sentiment by the number who'd written Congress demanding independent investigations, attending street demonstrations, and organizing memorials, the ICE attacks seem to have struck a nerve that previous scandals have not, with outrage amplified by multiple videos depicting two crime stories completely at odds with ICE or DHS explanations. Today, there were memorial bike rides organized in around 250 towns and cities around the world, including this one that began in Boulder...
We started in North Boulder Park with a group of over 760* cyclists of all ages, and rode eastward across town to Carpenter Park, with local police and volunteers directing traffic, often to the sounds of honks by approving motorists. By the time we'd circled west again along Boulder Creek to the Central Park Bandshell, the crowd greeting us seemed to number well into 4 figures. A poster we noticed read, "Whenever cruelty becomes normal, compassion becomes radical."
*Footnotes:
Our local Humane Society is the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, providing adoption services, offering classes, training volunteers and accepting donations at 2323 55th Street, Boulder, CO 80301, tel. 303-442-4030, and at their website: boulderhumane.org.
ICE is a reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The initial estimate of participating cyclists was provided by volunteers posted at the exit from North Boulder Park,
Photo Credits:
All photos are by the author.
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