Minnesota’s top elected and law enforcement officials Wednesday pledged justice for George Floyd.
Floyd is the black man whose death Monday sparked raw emotions after a video showed him being held under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, snapping a metropolis from the fixation of a pandemic back to the vexing and violent realities of race relations.
“Like so many Minnesotans, and so many people now across the country and the world, I was shocked and horrified by the video of George Floyd’s death,” Gov. Tim Walz said during an afternoon news conference. “It’s very clear to anyone that what happened to George Floyd is wrong. The lack of humanity in the video, as I said, made me physically ill, and even more difficult to understand.”
Wednesday’s news briefing was the first to be dominated by non-pandemic news since the coronavirus outbreak spawned the regular briefings and it included several people of color in senior roles, who could direct or influence potential outcomes.
Here’s what the state’s leaders had to say Wednesday:
KEITH ELLISON
Attorney General Kieth Ellison, an African-American onetime civil rights activist who campaigned on the idea that his office might play a role in police violence prosecutions, vowed: “My office will be a force for transparency. … We will be watching.”
Ellison traced the historical arc of tension, mistrust and violence between police and black communities to the early part of the prior century, saying, “What we’re dealing with here is not an isolated case, but a systemic problem.”
JOHN HARRINGTON
Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington, who is African-American and a former St. Paul police chief, has authority over the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s investigation into Floyd’s death.
He said the agency “moved quickly to take over the crime scene.” Harrington said he played a role in requesting an FBI civil rights investigation after he watched the video and concluded “a civil rights violation really did appear to be happening on that screen.”
Harrington and Ellison chaired a “Working Group on Police-Involved Deadly Force Encounters” that in February released recommendations that bear directly on Floyd’s death, including making “the sanctity of life” a “core value” for police, as well as mandating a “duty to intervene” when an officer is committing excessive violence.
PEGGY FLANAGAN
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and has championed the cause of racial inequities for years, sought to ensure that the larger context of the moment would not be lost.
“The grief in this moment is unbearable,” Flanagan said. “But in this moment of pandemic, it’s more than that because the truth is that the same underlying issues of systematic racism that led to the death of George Floyd are the same underlying issues that have led to communities of color, especially our black community, to be affected more by COVID-19 than the rest.”
TOEING THE LINE
All four officials sought to emphasize they would not prejudge the outcome of the various investigations and, despite their clear sentiments of finding the situation unacceptable, they trod lightly on statements that could be construed as overtly criticizing the officers involved. They neither criticized nor endorsed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s call for Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman to charge the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck.
As they spoke, groups of demonstrators gathered outside a Minneapolis police station near where Floyd died, prompting Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, who is black, to issue a statement: “Today a group of individuals have convened at the 3rd Precinct who have participated in assaultive behavior and destruction of property. Their actions are placing people at great risk of being seriously injured. … Criminal behavior will not be tolerated.”
No such missives came from the Emergency Operations Center in St. Paul, where Walz, Ellison and Harrington convened, and Flanagan joined via video call. Tuesday evening, violence erupted outside the precinct headquarters as factions of demonstrators vandalized the station and police vehicles, and police fired non-lethal projectiles and chemical irritants into crowds.
But the four officials generally praised the demonstrators, most of whom appeared to be wearing masks and attempting to social distance, and only spoke of the violence when a reporter repeatedly questioned Walz about it.
“We’re not condoning that,” Walz said.
“I would urge law enforcement to exercise restraint,” Ellison said, adding later: “I would urge protesters to remember that they’re there to lift up what happened to Mr. Floyd. … Letting your emotions override you in a way that will lead the conversation to shift to crowd behavior is not the way to do this.”