A look back: Tim Walz & the BLM Riots

Governor dithered for days as violence escalated

Hispanics account for just six percent of the Minnesota population. This may be why Minnesota Governor Tim Walz felt comfortable falsely blaming Hispanics and white supremacists for perpetrating the violent George Floyd protests in Minneapolis in 2020.

After the death of George Floyd, anti-police protests in Minneapolis on May 27^th began to escalate into rampant violence. A Black Lives Matter organizer justified the violence claiming “There are folks reacting to a violent system.” 

That day, protests outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct quickly spiraled out-of-control. Dozens of nearby buildings were set ablaze. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo pleaded with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for help. In turn, Frey contacted Governor Tim Walz and requested he deploy the National Guard to quickly maintain order. Walz did not act on the request.

Walz’s office later denied Frey made a request to mobilize the National Guard. However, independent review by the Minneapolis Star Tribune of written and phone records between the mayor’s and governor’s offices corroborate the accounts of Frey and Arradondo they requested the governor’s assistance with the National Guard on May 27th.

For context on why Walz may have dithered, nearly 15 years earlier when then-guardsman Walz’s unit learned it was it be mobilized and deployed to Iraq he quickly submitted retirement papers and abruptly left the National Guard, leading to his reduction in rank. During his political campaigning, Walz falsely claimed he served in combat. He never deployed abroad nor served in combat.

Events worsened throughout that evening and the next day. More than 1,500 buildings were set ablaze, damaged, or looted.  A five-mile stretch of a main drag in Minneapolis and three-and-a-half section of downtown St Paul were the sites of hundreds of buildings torched. Private homes and businesses were damaged; some burned to the ground. Pharmacies, liquor stores and electronics shops were looted. There was mayhem everywhere.

After an inexplicable delay, Walz finally acted and initially mobilized just 500 members of the Minnesota National Guard. By then, the situation had gotten completely out-of-hand and city police, state troopers and National Guardsmen were overwhelmed. The twin cities shut-down.  Businesses and shops that had not been destroyed or looted were shuttered.

The state senate president observed Walz should have immediately mobilized 2,000 guardsmen to get ahead of the violence. Walz did not fully mobilize the National Guard until May 30^th, three days after the initial requests from Frey and Arradondo. Walz’s delay proved catastrophic.

The security situation in the riot zone had become so untenable that firefighters held back from battling fires due to repeated attacks from protesters.

Implying he had evidence (“what I’ve seen on this”), Walz falsely claimed on May 30^th that white supremacists and drug cartels were behind most of the violence. Walz insisted BLM was infiltrated by whites and Hispanics to foment violence and destruction. To date, no evidence has emerged tying Mexican drug cartels or any other foreign agents to the BLM-inspired violence. No white supremacists were ever revealed as secretly infiltrating BLM rioters.

The reality was the opposite. According to a black business owner, "white people from the community that are literally out with hockey sticks" helped protect his neighborhood, including his t-shirt business, from rioters.

In those first few days, Walz made another absurd claim. He insisted 80 percent of the rioters were from out-of-state. Aside from his staff, no one else made a similar claim of the presence of non-resident provocateurs. Walz’s office told reporters it had evidence to back up the assertions, but failed to provide any when repeatedly pressed by the media.

In fact, a large majority of rioters were in-staters. In the days that followed, 9 of 10 people charged with federal crimes violations were Minnesotans. Three of four arrested on state changes were Minnesota residents.

About 1,500 businesses were damaged due to the rioting and looting. An estimated $500 million in damages occurred in Minneapolis and St Paul. But very few of the rioters were held accountable. About 600 were arrested statewide for their roles in the destruction, arson and rioting. 520 of those were charged with criminal acts in the city of Minneapolis. All but 26 had their charges dismissed by the city prosecutor. A review of the charges one year later found 60% of those arrested throughout the state were from Minnesota and most of the rest were from nearby Wisconsin and Illinois.

Mark Hyman is an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, and Parler at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.

His books Washington Babylon: From George Washington to Donald Trump, Scandals That Rocked the Nation and Pardongate: How Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Brothers Profited from Pardons are on sale now (here and here).