Soldier of Fortune Magazine The Journal of Professional Adventurers
by Susan Katz Keating
My correspondent called me from downrange on assignment in Minneapolis. I cut him off when I heard the threats. “Get out. Now,” I said.
I am not printing his true name in this article. That decision is mine — one I made as his publisher, and because I have seen firsthand what happens to journalists when things go wrong in charged situations.
I stand in front of him.
Here’s how it unfolded.
On March 6, my correspondent — I’ll call him Jake — went to cover “Abolish ICE: A Fundraiser for the People,” a concert headlined by the Dropkick Murphys. Event posters announced a list of aims: abolish ICE, raise money for “the people,” fight fascism, and support “the warriors who’ve stepped up to protect our neighbors and our democracy.”
The organizers and sponsors spoke for themselves. I wanted Jake to get individual, independent voices from people in the crowd. Why were they there? Who are “the people?” What does fighting fascism on the streets of Minneapolis actually mean; who are the warriors, and what have they done?
Jake arrived at the concert site outside the Black Forest Inn. The parking lot was full of people. Performers were onstage. Jake approached his first prospective voice.
“I’m a journalist on assignment for Soldier of Fortune. Can I ask you some questions?”
“With who?”
“Soldier of Fortune.”
“Fuck off.”
The encounters continued along those lines. Then a couple concertgoers flipped the script, and approached Jake.
“They asked if I worked for Soldier of Fortune,” he told me.
People in this very small group berated the publication. Someone apparently recognized our name.
“You’re a fascist,” one woman said.
Jake asked how she defined a fascist.
“You,” her companion said. “You are a fascist.”
READ MORE from Owen Thorne: Lone ICE Agent Fell While Being Chased and Heckled by Minneapolis Crowd
Jake moved to the perimeter and called to give me a progress report.
“So far no one is talking to me. Except to say we’re unsat.”
That’s when I heard the screaming. It was just a couple voices, focused and intensely angry. They were not using whistles nor banging on drums. Just screaming.
“It sounds like they’re moving closer to you,” I said. “Who are they screaming at?”
“Me.”
He didn’t need to hold up the phone. I could hear them.
“Fascist! You’re a fascist!”
And then:
“You know what we do to fascists? We shoot them!”
I had seen posts online, circulating a meme: “We didn’t vote for fascists. We shot them.”
The screams and the memes used the same language. And now Jake was on the receiving end of someone else’s rage in a group setting.
I told him to get out.
Why did these people turn on Jake? He didn’t ask a single question, but he did say who he wrote for. If they looked us up, they could have seen our report about a second Soldier of Fortune correspondent, Owen Thorne, who watched a federal agent being chased by a crowd in Minneapolis. Or maybe they just don’t like us.
Whatever prompted the hostility, I have seen what happens when groups of enraged people cross the threshold to violence. It only takes a couple people to do it, acting on their own. They surround someone. They close off the exits. And then they begin.
In Ireland during the Troubles, I watched a crowd surround and pummel a journalist during a riot. In California during a farm worker protest, I drove a photographer to the emergency room when demonstrators beat her and smashed her camera. In Belgrade, I was surrounded and threatened while taking pictures at a demonstration.
The pattern is not confined to foreign or long-ago datelines.
Last year, online video showed demonstrators in Los Angeles menacing a Fox television crew and forcing them to leave. Independent journalist Aldo Buttazzoni was chased out, and a KTTV Fox 11 news van was broken into and vandalized, according to Reporters Without Borders.
In Portland, journalist Katie Daviscourt was assaulted while reporting on protests in October 2025. Journalist Andy Ngo — previously beaten while covering unrest — has said he left the United States for periods due to sustained threats against him.
As recently as January, protesters were filmed surrounding a journalist during a live broadcast, attempting to disrupt the report by interfering with her crew’s equipment.
Soldier of Fortune has covered conflict for 50 years. We know what threats sound like.
I heard this one myself, through the phone, in real time. I’ve heard sounds like that in places where the next sound was worse. I told Jake to leave. He did.
That hasn’t stopped us from publishing the story.
Susan Katz Keating is the publisher and editor in chief at Soldier of Fortune. She has covered multiple riots and conflict in Northern Ireland, Ireland, Belgrade, and elsewhere.
