Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz reportedly ignored repeated warnings from the mayor of Minneapolis about brewing violence in the city after the May death of George Floyd and rebuffed his requests to deploy the National Guard.
In a bombshell interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Mayor Jacob Frey said Walz failed to act after Frey repeatedly raised the alarm about growing unrest in the city that led to widespread looting and the torching of a police precinct and hundreds of other buildings.
Frey said he called Walz, a fellow Democrat, on the second night of unrest to warn him that a Target store was being looted and asked him to send in troops, which Walz eventually did days later.
The city of Minneapolis sustained more than $55 million in property damage from looting and protests demanding justice for Floyd’s death at the hands of white police officers.
“We expressed the seriousness of the situation. The urgency was clear,” Frey told the Star Tribune, while providing text messages between him and the governor.
“He did not say yes,” Frey said of Walz, 56. “He said he would consider it.”
Days later, Walz stood outside the smoldering Third Precinct police station and accused Frey of losing control of his city, calling the response an “abject failure.”
Frey, 39, described it as a “hit in the gut.”
“Not just for me, but for so many in our city that were doing everything they could. Everyone was pouring themselves into stemming the violence,” he said.
But the governor’s office pushed back on suggestions that it failed to quell rioting and said text messages and phone calls from Frey did not count as a formal request to send in the National Guard.