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Race riots and looting caused incredible damage to the city of Minneapolis in 2020.
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Race riots and looting caused incredible damage to the city of Minneapolis in 2020. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / Getty Images)

Look at These Horrifying Images of Minneapolis After Walz Let Rioters Burn it to the Ground

 By C. Douglas Golden  October 6, 2024 at 7:30am
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On the debate stage Tuesday night, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz showed America exactly who he was: a deeply afraid man way out of his depth, chosen to be running mate for a woman who has already proven in four years in the vice presidency that she’s out of her depth, as well.

However, to a certain extent, Walz emerged unscathed because the moderators didn’t ask him the tough questions.

The obvious one? Why did he let Minneapolis burn itself to the ground in the wake of George Floyd’s death?

Because make no mistake, he did — and these are the horrifying facts and images Americans need to remember when they cast their ballot this November.

A bit of a refresher: On May 25, 2020, Floyd died in police custody after he was arrested for passing a counterfeit bill at a local store in Minnesota’s biggest city.

The merits of the court cases against the police officers involved can be debated endlessly, but what happened next was entirely predictable: Floyd’s death became a flashpoint for both activists and violent rioters — often difficult to tell apart — who had issues with policing in particular or America in general.

Also, thanks to the pandemic, these individuals often had no jobs to go to or nothing to do.

Did Gov. Tim Walz fail to respond to the 2020 BLM riots in a timely manner?

When Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey wanted Walz to call out the Minnesota National Guard to quell the situation in the city — particularly a police precinct that was under siege — first Walz dithered, then sent in a small force unequipped to handle the Black Lives Matter riot.

The Minnesota state Senate’s report released in October of 2020 found that Walz “first mobilized the Minnesota National Guard on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28 … 18 hours after” Frey requested it, according to the New York Post.

The mob ended up taking over that precinct and burning it down:

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It was hardly the only building to suffer a similar fate.

According to KMSP-TV, as of June 17, just a few weeks after the riots had started, “approximately 700 buildings” were damaged in the riots.

Of those roughly 700 structures, 12 were so thoroughly burned out they needed to be demolished, lest public safety be compromised.

“Within those properties though there were several store fronts,” said Steve Poor, the city’s director of Development Services.

“So a property could have had several businesses in it, residences above it, and so while the number may not be a very large number understand the impacts of that are very great.”

And who did this hurt? Certainly not the wealthy and privileged.

“Damage is something we can quantify, and it’s going to take a long time to determine that figure,” said Erik Hansen, the city’s director of policy and economic development.

“But, impact is across the board and it is disproportionally impacted neighborhoods that were already suffering from displacement and economic downturns.”

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune estimated that over 1,500 businesses suffered $500 million in damage from the riots as of December 2021. State legislators were still doling out money to Minneapolis and the other twin city, the state capital of St. Paul, in aid packages then — including another $20 million to Minneapolis.

“The $20 million, the way I look at it, there’s a lot of businesses that got hurt and I don’t think that’s enough. Maybe it gets us in the right direction, but we need more support,” said Faisal Demaag, whose furniture store was destroyed.

“If we want Lake Street to come back as a cultural district, everyone needs to help us.”

There were 604 arrests in Minneapolis in the first few days of the rioting, BuzzFeed News reported — although this came nowhere near to capturing the number of crimes committed during the spree of utter lawlessness that followed Floyd’s death.

Not only that, but the rioting metastasized, with over 11,000 people arrested at what BuzzFeed charitably called “protests.”

(This was before the “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” tagline was used by CNN, but you could tell that media outlets were already using pleasant-sounding euphemisms for disorder and destruction.)

And, make no mistake: When this is what’s happening outside of a police department in Minneapolis, that’s exactly what it is. Unalloyed destruction.

And, after all the arsons at local businesses during the unrest — 164 in total — the feds had to step in to help try and track down the bad guys responsible.

“When I saw that from the air, it was likened to a battlefield scene, actual battlefield video footage that I’d seen before,” said Jeffery Reed, assistant special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ St. Paul Field division, according to WCCO-TV.

“That’s the immediate analogy that I drew because it looked like missile strikes.”

“The FBI was also watching from Washington D.C., then the ATF’s national response teams came in from across America,” WCCO reported.

“But getting started was complicated, juggling COVID-19 worries, security challenges for ground crews and the emotion of it all.”

“Were they getting enough rest? Were they, you know, how is this affecting them mentally, because in a crisis event, I mean, it affects us all,” Reed told WCCO.

Meanwhile, Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz said she “could smell the burning tires [during the riots], and that was a very real thing.” And not a bad one, apparently.

“I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening,” she said.

And this arson had a body count: At least two dead in homicides directly attributable to the riots as of mid-July 2020, according to the Star-Tribune.

“It was obvious to me that [the governor] froze under pressure, under a calamity, as people’s properties were being burned down,” said Minnesota state Sen. Warren Limmer, who blamed Walz’s “personal sympathies” for the rioters for the lack of action.

And it wasn’t just Minneapolis that burned during the long, hot summer of our discontent. Because of rioting that was allowed to fester — not unreasonably attributed to Walz’s “personal sympathies” toward those doing it — Axios reported that damage from the Black Lives Matter unrest that spread nationwide came in at up to $2 billion, although the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education noted the real number could be even higher.

This is the man that Kamala Harris wants to be his partner in government.

Do you want him to do to the greatest country in the world what he allowed his constituents to do to the biggest city in his state?

If so, vote Harris-Walz. And God help us all if they win.

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C. Douglas Golden
Contributor, Commentary
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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