BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. – Winona journalist Rachel Mergen opened a series of articles from this suddenly racially torn Minneapolis suburb by describing herself as a white woman who follows the rules quite closely and never had to fear the police. Covering the protests over the police shooting of Daunte Wright, however, she was “very afraid.” “I feared the pain they could cause me with teargas or rubber bullet,” Mergen told Winona Daily News readers. Teargas, she said, is hardly an enjoyable experience. “It overwhelms your lungs and eyes as you try to escape the burning sensation.’ She also feared being stampeded. “Every time the crowd thought there was a chance of the teargas being released, you could feel an adrenaline rush course through it.” But she noted she wasn’t afraid of the protesters. “The majority were peaceful, simply chanting for change in how police interact with persons of color as they raised their arms in the air. Most of them only wanted a better society for the people they allied with or identified with.”
Mergen. A 2019 University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse grad in political science and English. At the Winona Daily News since two years.