Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ new running mate, “failed to act” when riots in Minneapolis in May 2020 left more than 1,000 businesses and a police station burned down, a scathing state senate report found.
The 60-year-old Democratic governor was criticized by the Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate Joint Committee on Transportation, Justice and Public Safety for delaying the deployment of the National Guard, failing to coordinate with local police, downplaying the possibility of violence and putting emergency responders at risk by allowing his adult daughter to access classified information about police operations during four days of riots that ripped through the Twin Cities following the May 25, 2020, death in police custody of George Floyd.
State Senate A poignant postmortem reportThe report, released in October 2020, determined that Governor Walz “first activated the Minnesota National Guard on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28…18 hours after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey first requested assistance and the next day after the city’s police chief wrote to Governor Walz that at least 600 National Guard troops were needed to quell the riots.”
“It was clear that the governor was frozen by the pressure and the panic over the disaster of people’s property being burned,” Republican state Sen. Warren Rimmer told The New York Times, suggesting the governor’s “personal sympathy” for the rioters may have been the reason he delayed acting.
When Waltz sent guards, the numbers were far fewer than what was needed and requested.
“A request for at least 600 Guard members was made at 9:11 p.m. on Wednesday, May 27,” the Senate report states. “Governor Walz ultimately deployed 100 Guard members to the City of Minneapolis late in the evening on Thursday, May 28.”
During the riots, the governor’s daughter, Hope, appeared to try to tip off arsonists and looters about the delayed National Guard response.
“There are people who actually have followers. [sic] “Will the masses with ‘National Guard’ trending get the news that the National Guard will not be coming tonight?” Hope, who was born in 2001, tweeted on May 28, 2020.
“Guards cannot be deployed within minutes,” she wrote in a subsequent tweet, noting that “they come from all over the state and it takes time to deploy.”
“To be clear, the National Guard will not be there tonight,” she added.
“Just because someone asks for something doesn’t mean it will happen right away or even at all,” Hope said in another tweet on May 28, 2020, apparently referring to local authorities’ request for the National Guard.
“I don’t know about SWAT, but I do know that security won’t be arresting people tonight,” she continued.
The state Senate committee cited Hope’s tweets as evidence that Walz “gave his adult daughter access to classified information, which she disseminated to the public and to insurrectionists.”
“This unnecessarily put police, Minnesota State Police and the Minnesota National Guard at risk,” the report said.
The same night that Waltz’s daughter posted these tweets, the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct was occupied and set on fire by rioters.
“The promise to hold the third tournament [Precinct] “That didn’t make sense to me,” Walz said at a news conference at the time when asked about the decision to evacuate the police station rather than confront the rioters.
The investigation into Governor Walz’s response found that he “never reached out to the Minneapolis Police Department to better understand the situation on the ground” and that his administration “did not adequately utilize the Minnesota State Police or Minnesota National Guard air support” to track rioters’ movements.
Moreover, Waltz underestimated how determined the rioters were to burn down the city.
“The Director of Public Safety acknowledged that criticism that the state overlooked rapidly escalating criminal activity and failed to realize that it was exceeding local capacity to respond is valid,” the report said, noting that the Walz administration indicated it “did not expect the violence” or that “it did not expect the violence to continue” between May 26 and 29.
But on a third night of looting and arson, Walz acknowledged the government’s response to the riots had been a “total failure that should never have happened.”
“I believe we’re just trying to do the best we can,” he told reporters recently when asked about his response to the riots.
Meanwhile, Harris called on her Twitter followers to help secure bail for rioters on June 1, 2020, just days after the Minneapolis Police Department was secured.
“If you can, please donate now. [Minnesota Freedom Fund] The then-California senator asked for help paying bail for protesters in Minnesota. I wrote to X.
The Minnesota Freedom Fund’s mission statement reads that the organization “pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for people who otherwise cannot pay, in order to end discriminatory, coercive and oppressive incarceration.”
The fund received more than $30 million in donations following the riots and Harris’ tweet.
Greg Lewin, the foundation’s interim executive director at the time, told McClatchy in 2021 that Harris did not personally bail out any rioters or have any other interactions with the group.
The Vice President also Media Tour In the aftermath of the riots, there were calls in support of “defunding the police” and redirecting resources from law enforcement agencies.
“This movement is about rightly saying that we need to look at these budgets and see if they reflect the right priorities,” Harris said during a June 9, 2020, appearance on the New York-based radio show “Ebro in the Morning.” According to CNN:.
“The progress we’ve made is thanks to people taking to the streets,” Harris added, offering strong support for the rioters.
