Minnesota preps National Guard ahead of trials for cops in George Floyd death
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is prepping for the possibility of widespread civil unrest amid the upcoming trials of four former Minneapolis cops charged in George Floyd’s police-custody death.
Walz issued an executive order Friday authorizing the Minnesota National Guard to deploy troops in Minneapolis, St. Paul and other communities to “keep the peace, ensure public safety and allow for peaceful demonstrations” during the trials of the since-fired officers.
The second-degree murder and manslaughter trial of Derek Chauvin — the white Minneapolis officer seen pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as the handcuffed black man repeatedly said “I can’t breathe” — is scheduled to start March 8.
The trials for the other three terminated officers charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter — J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao — are set to begin in August.
“There are some public safety events for which you cannot plan, and there are some for which you can,” the Democratic governor announced Friday.
Walz’s order did not specify the number of National Guard troops to be deployed. The state’s adjutant general will determine how many are ultimately “needed to coordinate and support public safety and security services” in Minneapolis, St. Paul and elsewhere throughout Minnesota, according to the executive order.
Walz also called on state legislators to approve his plan to use $35 million from an emergency account to ensure there’s enough law enforcement personnel for local agencies to employ the National Guard’s help.
But the proposal was met with pushback from state GOP leaders who don’t want to lose statewide funds from their community and insist Minneapolis should foot the bill, especially following police cuts in the city after Floyd’s May 25 death.
“We are not going to bail out [the] Minneapolis City Council after they have made cuts to the public safety budget,” Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka told Fox News last week. “Actions to defund the police have consequences.”
Walz said Friday that the funding would be a “critical tool” to ensure enough officers can respond to the potential unrest.
Since the National Guard is not a law enforcement agency, its members must partner with police while on the ground, requiring significant aid from neighboring cities and counties at a substantial cost, Walz said.
Violence in the aftermath of Floyd’s death rocked Minneapolis before spreading across the globe and sparking a “Defund the police” movement that led to the public safety cuts in the city of roughly 420,000 people.