Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly minted running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “failed to act” during May 2020 riots in Minneapolis that burned over 1,000 businesses and a police station to the ground, a scathing state Senate report showed.
The 60-year-old Democratic governor was accused by the Republican-controlled Minnesota Senate’s Joint Transportation and Judiciary and Public Safety Committee of delaying the deployment of the National Guard, failing to coordinate with local police, downplaying the possibility of riots and allowing his adult daughter to access confidential information about law enforcement movements that put first responders at risk during the the four days of rioting that swept through the Twin Cities in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25, 2020, death in police custody.
The state Senate’s scathing postmortem, released in October 2020, determined that Walz “first mobilized the Minnesota National Guard on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28 … 18 hours after” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey first pleaded for assistance and the day after the city’s police chief gave Walz written notice that he needed at least 600 National Guardsmen to quell the riots.
“It was obvious to me that he froze under pressure, under a calamity, as people’s properties were being burned down,” Republican state Sen. Warren Limmer told the New York Times, suggesting that the governor’s “personal sympathies” toward the rioters may have been why he was slow to act.
When Walz did send in the guard, it was far less than what was needed and requested.
“The request was sent for at least 600 guardsmen at 9:11 p.m. Wednesday, May 27,” the Senate report states. “Governor Walz eventually produced 100 guardsmen for the City of Minneapolis late in the evening on Thursday, May 28.”
Amid the riots, the governor’s daughter, Hope, appears to have tried to tip off the arsonists and looters that the National Guard was going to be slow to respond.
“Could someone who actually has followers rely [sic] to the masses that have gotten ‘national guard’ trending that the guard WILL NOT be present tonight??” Hope, who was born in 2001, tweeted on May 28, 2020.
“The guard can not be sent in within minutes,” she wrote in a subsequent tweet, noting that “it takes time for them to deploy because they come from all over the state.”
“To be clear, the national guard will not be present tonight,” she added.
“Just because someone asked for something doesn’t mean it’s happening right away or even happening at all,” another May 28, 2020, tweet from Hope read, an apparent reference to local officials’ request for the National Guard.
“I don’t know about swat but what I do know is the guard will not be present arresting people tonight,” she continued.
The state Senate committee pointed to Hope’s tweets as evidence that Walz “allowed his adult daughter to access confidential information that she then disseminated to the general public and rioters.”
“This unnecessarily put police, Minnesota State Troopers, and the Minnesota National Guard in jeopardy,” the report said.
On the same night Walz’s daughter sent out those tweets, the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct police station was overrun by rioters and set ablaze.
“The commitment to hold the third [Precinct] was one I was not comfortable with,” Walz said during a press conference at the time when asked about the decision to evacuate the precinct rather than counter the rioters.
The investigation into Walz’s response also found that the governor “never reached out to Minneapolis Police Department to better understand the situation on the ground” and his administration was “not fully using the Minnesota State Patrol or the Minnesota National Guard’s aviation support” to track the movements of rioters.
Furthermore, Walz underestimated how hell-bent the mob was to burn the city down.
“The Commissioner of Public Safety admitted it was a fair criticism to say the state failed to see the criminal activity that was rapidly escalating and failed to see it was beyond the local’s capacity to handle,” the report states, noting that Walz’s administration expressed that it “ did not expect rioting” or “did not expect rioting to continue” between May 26 and May 29.
Walz, however, did acknowledge on the third night of rampant looting and arson, that the government’s response to the rioting was “an abject failure that cannot happen.”
“I simply believe that we try to do the best we can,” he told reporters recently when questioned about his response to the riots.
Meanwhile, Harris — just days after the Minneapolis police station was lit up — asked her Twitter followers on June 1, 2020, to assist in bailing rioters out of jail.
“If you’re able to, chip in now to the [Minnesota Freedom Fund] to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota,” the then-California senator wrote on X.
The Minnesota Freedom Fund’s mission statement says the group “pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for those who cannot otherwise afford to as we seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing.”
The fund received more than $30 million in donations after the riots and Harris’ tweet.
Greg Lewin, the fund’s interim executive director at the time, told McClatchy in 2021 that Harris did not personally bail out rioters or have any other interaction with the group.
The vice president also went on a media tour in the aftermath of the riots voicing support for “defund the police” and redirecting resources from law enforcement.
“This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities,” Harris said during a June 9, 2020, appearance on New York-based radio show “Ebro in the Morning,” according to CNN.
“Any progress we have gained has been because people took to the streets,” Harris added, signaling strong support for the rioters.
