MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Days after George Floyd was murdered in 2020, as the video of the last moments of his life ricocheted around the country and sent waves of demonstrators onto Minnesota streets, Gov. Tim Walz (D) sat in a room with public safety officials and pondered his options.<\/p>\n
The protests were growing increasingly violent, and the Minneapolis mayor had requested that Walz send the National Guard to help. To Walz, the question was not just how many guard members he could muster, but what they would do when they got there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were people out in those streets who were in grief over decades of systemic racism \u2014 they saw murder,\u201d Walz recalled of the deliberations in a 2021 interview with a Washington Post reporter for a book about Floyd\u2019s life and legacy. \u201cAnd there were people out in those streets that didn\u2019t care and who didn\u2019t know who George Floyd was, and meant to do harm. I had to make sure that I was clearly making decisions \u2026 to create a space where those folks could protest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walz\u2019s decisions in those painful, pivotal days after Floyd was killed are facing newfound scrutiny now that Vice President Kamala Harris has selected Walz as her running mate in a suddenly upended race for the White House. Former president Donald Trump and his allies are seizing on criticism from other Democrats that Walz was too slow to act to portray him as weak \u2014 another lenient liberal politician, in their telling, who gave a pass to protesters and allowed destruction in their cities.<\/p>\n
Walz \u201callowed rioters to burn down the streets of Minneapolis,\u201d Trump\u2019s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), said shortly after Walz was selected.<\/p>\n
Yet in the immediate aftermath of the riot Trump praised Walz, even as Trump sparred repeatedly with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a liberal figure at the center of the response, according to a recording of a call the then-president held with advisers and governors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately,\u201d Trump said on the June 1, 2020, call, a recording of which was initially obtained by the Associated Press. Trump described Walz as \u201can excellent guy\u201d and said responsibility for the destruction in Minneapolis did not lie with the governor. \u201cI don\u2019t blame you,\u201d he said. \u201cI blame the mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The praise did not only flow one way. Walz thanked Trump for his \u201cstrategic guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of the demonstrators who took to the streets in the days following Floyd\u2019s killing protested peacefully. But some went much further, trying to stop traffic on a major highway, looting businesses, skirmishing with police and setting buildings on fire.<\/p>\n
Four years and a presidential election cycle later, Trump and Walz are on opposite sides of the race for the White House, and the Trump campaign is trying to downplay the former president\u2019s earlier praise.<\/p>\n
\u201cGovernor Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn for days, despite President Trump\u2019s offer to deploy soldiers and cries for help from the liberal Mayor of Minneapolis,\u201d Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. \u201cIn this daily briefing phone call with Governors on June 1, days after the riots began, President Trump acknowledged Governor Walz for FINALLY taking action to deploy the National Guard to end the violence in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other Republicans have piled on. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted \u201cRemember when Governor Walz let rioters and looters burn a police station to the ground in 2020?\u201d David Hann, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party, told Fox News that Walz \u201cdisplayed a remarkable lack of leadership in dealing with the riot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The details of that anguished time suggest a reality that is more complex. The initial responsibility for confronting the escalating violence lay with Minneapolis city officials, who sought help from the state. Walz sent in the Minnesota National Guard three days after Floyd\u2019s death and one day after Frey requested it, according to local reports. By the time the National Guard arrived, a police precinct had already burned to the ground and many businesses had been destroyed.<\/p>\n
Walz declined federal assistance from Trump, who expressed his thoughts about additional uses of force in tweets, saying \u201cthe Military is with (Walz) all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.\u201d He also said that if Minneapolis\u2019s Democratic mayor didn\u2019t bring things under control \u201cI will send in the National Guard & get the job done right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Floyd\u2019s murder, when a police officer knelt on his neck for an extended period as onlookers watched, set off a wave of reaction across the country, the impact of which is still being felt. Protesters have demanded sweeping police reforms and systemic racism has faced renewed scrutiny. But that push has faced resistance, as conservatives have defended law enforcement and ridiculed diversity and inclusion efforts.<\/p>\n
Against that backdrop, Walz\u2019s sudden elevation to the national stage is prompting a new look at his role. Some Republicans criticize his handling of the crisis as insufficiently tough, while many activists say he acted with compassion and restraint.<\/p>\n
In the 2021 interview, Walz said he felt acutely the need to consider the pain felt by protesters traumatized by what they saw as a clear case of police brutality and racism. It was not enough to clear the streets, he said; law enforcement had to respect the rights of Minnesotans at the center of a searing moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were on the streets for a very particular reason, the vast majority of them, of what they saw had happened,\u201d Walz said. \u201cSo I think from a leadership perspective, trying to balance that \u2014 it\u2019s not just enough to say, \u2018No, you can\u2019t be there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018You know why we\u2019re out here.\u2019 That\u2019s what they were telling me \u2014 \u2018You know why we\u2019re out here,\u2019\u201d he added. \u201cAnd trying to make sure that I was hearing that too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump was not the only Republican who at the time focused the blame on Frey, whom they saw as a liberal big-city mayor. Frey pushed back, saying he asked Walz for help from the state, but it was slow in coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked for the National Guard, we asked for state patrol, we asked for any resources that they could be willing to offer as quickly as possible,\u201d Frey said in a 2021 interview with a Post reporter for the book. \u201cThey didn\u2019t say yes. They mentioned that they wanted support from the city council or the state legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frey said that nearly a day went by before city officials were told whether Walz would send assistance. \u201cThat following evening is the night we had to evacuate the 3rd Precinct, and we didn\u2019t have help,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were literally having to make decisions between sending police officers to protect a precinct, or sending them to protect the commercial corridor from looting, or to protect firefighters as they put out fires.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walz has said city officials were not clear on where they wanted the National Guard sent. In a news conference the morning after police evacuated the 3rd Precinct, Walz delivered a stinging rebuke, calling the city\u2019s response \u201can abject failure.\u201d Both sides later acknowledged a major failure of communication.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Frey said he was not available for comment, but conveyed a statement from the mayor. \u201cI requested the National Guard immediately and Governor Walz, not Donald Trump, authorized one of the guard\u2019s largest deployments in Minnesota history,\u201d the statement said. \u201cDuring one of the city and state\u2019s most difficult moments, we collectively tried our best to navigate unprecedented times and to do so quickly. Governor Walz is a friend, an excellent governor, and I am proud to support him as Vice President.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the speed and urgency of Walz\u2019s response have been questioned, civil rights leaders generally praise him for taking seriously the calls for police and justice reform in his state.<\/p>\n
Even as the protests continued, less than two months after Floyd was killed, Walz called a special session of the legislature that passed a raft of police reform bills. The legislation banned chokeholds, required officers to step in if a colleague was using excessive force and banned \u201cwarrior-style\u201d training for police officers. Walz also supported funding for mental health response teams.<\/p>\n
BREAKING: Judge upholds murder charges against Derek Chauvin and other officers. Important step toward justice for George Floyd.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) October 22, 2020<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Walz\u2019s opinions were congruent with \u201cthe pace and direction that Minnesota wanted to go in\u201d after Floyd was killed, said Jeremiah Ellison, a Minneapolis City Council member since 2018 who walked the streets during the unrest and is a strong advocate of police reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never got the impression that he was dismissive of the need for change,\u201d Ellison said. \u201cI felt like his approach to reform was urgent, it was moderate, it was reasonable \u2014 maybe not what I would want, but certainly a reflection of what probably most Minnesotans could handle and were demanding at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minnesota AG @keithellison responds to right-wing attacks on Tim Walz\u2019 handling of the George Floyd aftermath: \u2018The governor sent the National Guard as soon as he was legally able to do so. And when he did, he helped calm down and quell civil disturbances. When he appointed me as\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/nx69Vejkzm<\/p>\n
\u2014 All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) August 7, 2024<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Walz also appointed Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to prosecute the case of Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd\u2019s neck. Ellison, who is Jeremiah Ellison\u2019s father, was seen as likely to take the case seriously and pursue it aggressively. On Friday, Floyd\u2019s younger brother, Philonise, announced that he was endorsing the Harris-Walz ticket, citing the governor\u2019s decision to appoint the attorney general as one of the reasons he supported Walz. In 2020, Philonise Floyd and other members of Floyd\u2019s family spoke at the Democratic National Convention.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, he was just a regular governor, just looking like a politician. Then, he stood up and he put Keith Ellison in place as the prosecutor, and that showed a lot of people he was not playing. He was serious,\u201d Floyd told MSNBC. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for Governor Walz, we would not be able to walk around and say that we got some accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n
But some police officers saw things differently. They accused Walz of picking sides, for example, after he tweeted that it was an \u201cimportant step toward justice for George Floyd\u201d after a judge affirmed that Chauvin could be charged with second-degree murder.<\/p>\n
Leaders of the Minnesota Police and Police Officers Association wrote Walz a letter complaining that some of his public remarks had been unfairly critical of police conduct. \u201cYour comments have fueled anger and hostility toward police and public safety officials,\u201d they wrote in October 2020, calling the governor\u2019s comments \u201cpremature, judgmental, inflammatory.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter added, \u201cThese are not peaceful protests. There have already been many, many injuries to people and property, with neighborhoods and livelihoods destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chauvin was ultimately convicted of unintentional second-degree murder. But outside of Minnesota, much of the energy from the George Floyd protests ultimately fizzled \u2014 a global reckoning on racial equity that, many activists believe, has largely petered out.<\/p>\n
Efforts to pass police reform bills died in the U.S. Senate, for example, where Democrats did not have enough votes. The principal bill, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, was co-sponsored by Harris when she was a senator.<\/p>\n
Two years after Floyd\u2019s death, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on police reform. The measure authorized the formation of a national accreditation system for police departments and created a national database of federal officers who have disciplinary records or have faced substantiated complaints of misconduct.<\/p>\n
But in many ways, the political debate has resumed the contours it took before Floyd\u2019s murder: Republicans have sought to label Democrats as soft on crime, while Democrats contend that Republicans dismiss the concerns of communities of color.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
MINNEAPOLIS \u2014 Days after George Floyd was murdered in 2020, as the video of the last moments of his life ricocheted around the country and sent waves of demonstrators onto Minnesota streets, Gov. Tim Walz (D) sat in a room with public safety officials and pondered his options. The protests were growing increasingly violent, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}