DUC: The Haaf Case - How Minneapolis Criminalized Black Peace

Welcome back to Da Urban Conservative, where we speak the unfiltered truth. Today, we dig deep into a story that Minneapolis would rather stay buried—the 1992 Jerry Haaf case. Yeah, we’re going there. Because the wounds it left on the Black community? Still open. Still bleeding.

Let’s talk about how the system took that tragedy and twisted it into a weapon against us. The so-called peacekeepers, the justice warriors, Minneapolis’ legal elites—Widseth and Streitz—recently resurfaced the narrative in a dangerous way. In Doug Grow’s 2005 column, the system made sure to frame the killing of Haaf as the death of any hope for peace. And guess who they blamed? Not just the four men who got life, but the entire Black community.

The facts? They don’t want you to remember those. Four men were locked up, but before them, four other Black men were arrested and let go after “cooperating.” Then came six weeks of mass round-ups. Over 600 Black men detained like it was open season. And yet, even after that, they still can’t tell you who the actual trigger man was.

But here’s the real kicker: the system wasn’t satisfied with pinning it on so-called “low-level” gang members. No, they wanted blood. They wanted to drag respected community activists like Spike Moss and Reverend Jerry McAfee into it—paint them as gang leaders hiding behind the title of “activist.” This wasn’t just about justice; this was about control.

This was their shot across the bow—their way of telling Black Minneapolis: Stay in line or get labeled. Scare the peacemakers, demonize the mentors, and keep the cycle of violence rolling. How do you crush a movement? Make them afraid to organize. Make them afraid to sit with the youth they’re trying to save.

Widseth and Streitz even implied that Spike Moss should’ve been indicted. If they spent “thousands of hours” investigating, why keep dropping innuendo? Why not charge him if they had it? Because they didn’t. But poison the well enough, and suddenly every Black leader is suspect.

Let’s not forget—back then, Sharif Willis was their golden child. The corporate darling of White Minneapolis. Wall Street Journal front-page profile, peace summits from Kansas City to Cleveland, Bill Cosby ready to throw $2 million behind an economic revival. But when a white cop dies, the whole deck gets reshuffled. Now Sharif is enemy #1. Now the system wants you to believe that peace efforts were just fronts for gangs.

Here’s what they don’t say: The powers-that-be were fine with Black-on-Black violence. Fine with drugs ravaging the neighborhoods—as long as it stayed in the inner city. But when Haaf was killed? Suddenly, Minneapolis cared. Suddenly, it was a state of emergency.

Let’s call it what it is: Black life didn’t matter to them then—and for many, it still doesn’t.

Ask yourself, why re-open this old wound now? Why Doug Grow and his editors let this narrative loose again? Is it about justice… or is it about reminding Black Minneapolis of its place?

Because while they’re rehashing 1992, the same system ignores the growing achievement gaps we exposed in our book—the widening divide between Black and white students in Minneapolis schools. They’re ignoring the job compliance rules they swore to enforce. They’re still clubbing our kids into inferiority.

The message is clear: keep the status quo intact. Keep the inner city isolated. Keep jobs and education scarce. Then blame Black leaders and families when things fall apart. All while ignoring the deep-rooted economic and social neglect behind it.

So here we are—thirteen years later, and they’re still playing the same game. This isn’t about gangs. It’s about narrative control. It’s about power. About making sure peace never takes root, and the cycle stays unbroken.

To the system, the Haaf case was never just about justice. It was about putting fear back in the hearts of those trying to heal our communities. It’s about turning mentors into suspects and advocates into targets.

We don’t stand with gangs. We stand with the truth. And this truth is clear: Until we’re allowed to save our kids without being criminalized for it, these wounds will never heal.

This is Da Urban Conservative. Stay sharp. Stay questioning. And most of all, stay free.