I experienced both sides. I was out there protesting every night the first weekend after Floyd was murdered. Friday night the cops and NG were present, but they didn’t intervene and didn’t stop any vandalism. Saturday they set an 8pm curfew and NG started tear-gassing at about 8:15pm. At the time I thought it was despicable that they were gassing even those of us who were marching peacefully. The government can murder people but we can’t walk down the street in protest?
Then I went to work on Monday (I was leading therapy groups with teens) and they were saying they felt scared all the time. Humvees on their street, gunshots, fires, people screaming, talk of civil war. Then I understood why Walz was saying, “The people of Minneapolis deserve to feel safe.” The protests continued during the day, and at the provocateurs couldn’t hide in a crowd of 50,000 people.
Over time I’ve come to think that Walz couldn’t have had a better response to what happened, and he was willing to be the bad guy. Jacob Frey was a scared little boy the entire time (still is) and had no fucking clue what he was doing (still doesn’t) without Walz.
I experienced both sides. I was out there protesting every night the first weekend after Floyd was murdered. Friday night the cops and NG were present, but they didn’t intervene and didn’t stop any vandalism. Saturday they set an 8pm curfew and NG started tear-gassing at about 8:15pm. At the time I thought it was despicable that they were gassing even those of us who were marching peacefully. The government can murder people but we can’t walk down the street in protest?
Then I went to work on Monday (I was leading therapy groups with teens) and they were saying they felt scared all the time. Humvees on their street, gunshots, fires, people screaming, talk of civil war. Then I understood why Walz was saying, “The people of Minneapolis deserve to feel safe.” The protests continued during the day, and at the provocateurs couldn’t hide in a crowd of 50,000 people.
Over time I’ve come to think that Walz couldn’t have had a better response to what happened, and he was willing to be the bad guy. Jacob Frey was a scared little boy the entire time (still is) and had no fucking clue what he was doing (still doesn’t) without Walz.