In October, outside the Saint Paul, Minnesota, police station, Alex Mingus was presented with the Chief’s Award for Valor for saving the life of a shooting victim. Mingus stepped up to the podium to accept the award—then took his sweatshirt off, revealing a t-shirt underneath that said: “Smash white supremacy.”

“I do not rock with the police,” he said. “They don’t keep us safe. We keep us safe. Riots work.”

Mingus teaches with the Minneapolis-based group, Atlas Defense Violence Prevention Training, which provides classes on permit-to-carry. He told The Appeal he is a member of the Wild Path Collective, which Mingus described as a “multicultural, intergenerational” group of like-minded people who are “trying to do some wonderful things.” …..