Strong Minnesota National Guard presence contrasts chaos of George Floyd riots

MORE THAN 60 ARRESTED FOLLOWING DAUNTE WRIGHT PROTEST

A guardsman told the Washington Examiner that the last of the protesters left late Tuesday night after a police line pushed them away from the fortified building. A fresh round of demonstrations is expected Wednesday night, after the Washington County Attorney’s Office charged Kimberly Potter, the officer who shot Wright, with second-degree manslaughter.

“We’ll be here as long as we need to be,” a guardsman told the Washington Examiner.

Throughout downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday night, the National Guard was posted on many street corners. Police and guardsmen patrolled East Lake St., the locus of protests and riots last year. More than 1,000 guardsmen this week were deployed to the city, which is already on edge as the trial Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, continues to proceed.

The great majority of those fresh troops were sent to Brooklyn Center, which has been barricaded since protesters on Sunday clashed with police outside the station. These troops, armed and carrying riot shields, on Tuesday night formed a line outside the fenced perimeter and, over the course of the evening, dispersed the protesters.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz imposed a 10 p.m. curfew for the Twin Cities metropolitan area, but police in Brooklyn Center began enforcing it at 8 p.m. after protesters began pelting them with bricks and fireworks. Police and guardsmen responded in kind, hitting protesters with teargas and flash-bang grenades.

At intervals throughout the night, Minnesota state police repeated the same message over a loudspeaker: “If you do not cease your unlawful behavior and disperse peacefully, you will be arrested.” Police also repeatedly urged members of the press to leave the area.

One woman watching the protests scoffed at the police and guardsmen attempting to disperse the crowd.

“They’ve been saying the same thing for hours,” she told the Washington Examiner. “Good luck getting us to leave.”

At a midnight press conference, Minneapolis Deputy Police Chief Amelia Huffman said that police had made several arrests for people refusing to follow the curfew. Police also arrested more than 60 people in Brooklyn Center as they cracked down on violent protesters. Huffman reported that the city did not find any instances of looting while the National Guard was patrolling much of the metro area.

Looters trashed several stores on the first night of protests following Wright’s death. Most businesses in the Brooklyn Center have since boarded up. The manager of a Taco Bell told the Washington Examiner that the fast food restaurant plans to wait a week before making on decision on whether or not to take down the boards.

The heavy troop presence sharply contrasted the state of the Twin Cities during the early stages of the Floyd protests. On the third night of protests last May, rioters breached the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd precinct and torched the interior. The building is still out of commission. And in the empty lot across the street, which was once Minnehaha Lake Wine & Spirits, grass is growing where the building was burned to the ground. Much of the street is still in ruins.

Last year, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Walz called in the National Guard only after several nights of riots and looting ravaged more than a mile of East Lake St. Then-President Donald Trump at the time mocked Frey for his response to the growing violence and repeatedly threatened to send the military into the city.

But this time around, the National Guard, already on alert because of the Chauvin trial, quickly showed its strength. On Tuesday night, a contingent of guardsmen camped out in the Target parking lot across from the silent husk of the 3rd precinct.

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When asked if the Guard planned to watch the area all night, a guardsman rolled down the window of his Humvee, allowing the light snowfall into the vehicle.

“Hell yeah,” he said.