We want to welcome our view es here in the United States and around the world im wolf blitzer in washington. And this is a special edition of the situation room. Following breaking news, chaotic scenes and unrest unfolding across the United States. Protests erupting in 30 major cities overnight. Demonstrators letting out their anger and frustration over the Police Killing of george floyd. But many of the protests leading to violent clashes with police. In atlanta, protesters threw fireworks at officers inside cnns world headquarters. They also set fire to a Police Cruiser as it spread into the streets. Protesters blocked traffic on a san jose free way. Many cities seeing large scale demonstrations overnight and growing uncertainty about where protests will happen next. Several are planned in the course of the next few hours. Some of the protests sadly turned deadly. In oakland two federal protective Service Officers were shot as demonstrations turned violent, one of the officers was killed. In detroit shots fired into a crowd killing a 19yearold man. As the violence grows so too do the calls for calm. Local, state and federal officials are making emotional pleas for peace. The disenfranchisement that went with what we witnessed with georges death is one thing. But the chaos, this is not grieving and this is not making a statement that we fully acknowledge needs to be mixed. This is life threatening. Were only moments away now from a press conference with the minnesota governor as the minneapolis mayor jacob fry. We will have full coverage. The tension in minnesota remains serious. Cnn has reporters all over the country for the latest developments. Lets begin in minneapolis where were standing by for the News Conference. Former officer charged with killing george floyd is walking up in a jail cell this morning and Derek Chauvins bail set at 500,000. Hes charged with third degree murder and manslaughter. Josh is on the scene for us. Were standing by for the News Conference, supposed to begin momentarily, josh but i understand Derek Chauvin and employed th floyd, they worked at the same place prior to the day floyd was arrested. The owner of the place said she doesnt believe they knew each other. Set the stage from what were about to hear from the governor, as well as the minneapolis mayor. As weve been reporting on this story, were learning new interesting layers about the relationship between everyone involved. As you mentioned, i actually interviewed the owner of a nightclub who said that both the officer that was arrested and floyd worked as security guards at her nightclub in different evenings. Now i asked her if they possibly recognized each other on the day of this confrontation, she said that wasnt likely. But she did give us some insight into the officer. Lets listen to what she said. I dont suspect that they recognized each other. Even though they may have crossed paths working together with me and my team. Its absolutely beyond words and having known chauvin, i cant believe he didnt have the humanity to listen to this poor man begging for air and his life. Chauvin we know has had a past with his temper and feeling maybe, you know, afraid when hes around africanamerican men, unfortunately he all of his bad demons came out that day. The News Conference beginning. Heres the governor of minnesota tim walz. I want to thank those who abided by the curfew. I want to thank our responders who are out there protecting our cities. As they were taking incoming fire, improvised explosive devices and a highly evolved and tightly controlled group of folks bent on adapting their tactics to make it as difficult as possible to maintain that order. My mission has been very clear to the folks in minnesota, in conjunction with mayor fry of minneapolis, mayor carter of st. Paul. Maintaining and restoring civil order on the streets is top priority. I think whats really important to recognize is the tactics and the approach that we have taken have evolved and need to evolve the same way. With a sensitivity to the legitimate rage and anger that came after what the world witnessed in the murder of george floyd, and was manifested in a very healthy gathering of community to memorialize that on tuesday night. Was still present to a certain degree on wednesday. By thursday, it was nearly gone and last night is a mockery of pretending this is about George Floyds death or inequities or historical traumas to our communities of color. Because our communities of color and our indigenous skmunts were out front fighting hand in hand to save businesses it took decades to build. Infrastructure and nonprofits that have served a struggling community were torn down and burned by people with no regard for what went into that. Lets be clear. The situation in minneapolis is no longer in any way about the murder of george floyd. It is about attacking Civil Society, instilling fear and disrupting our great cities. With that being the case as we indicated last night, our tactics again is to try and reduce loss of life, to do what we can to restore order. We mobilized the largest mobilization of National Guard that were in the field last night of over 700. We pulled in state patrol and state assets to augment minneapolis and st. Pauls force. As i told people who are listening. This is not an infinite number of people we can pull. The Minnesota State patrol is a highly trained, organized force whenever single one of them is up at operating, its about 700. You cant operate all the time on that. Same thing with the minnesota National Guard and, of course, the cities. So as you saw this expand across the United States and you start to see whether it be democratic terrorism, whether it be ideological extremists or whether it be destabilization of of how country works, those elements are in all of this. I spoke with the joint chiefs of staff to update on the situation, receive their situation report as theyre seeing it across the country and suggest courses of action going forward. In consultation with the mayors and the resources they have and just to be very clear as you witness this, whether it be new york or denver or louisville or las vegas, there is no mayor in america that has the resources to push back on an organized attempt to destabilize Civil Society with no regard for life or property. So in consultation as a group and as we said this morning, im authorizing and talking to general jenson to fully mobilize the minnesota National Guard. An action thats never been taken in the history of the National Guard. We will pull in assets as weave been doing. For those wondering where are the fire trucks and police out there . The situation was so broad and the tactics so bent on causing destruction that every person we had mobilized, the largest in state history last evening, was engaged in that. By this afternoon our hope is to exponentially have that forceout there to use all other resources in the states and the partnership of sister cities and counties to help us. And i have made initial calls and will be speaking with the governors of adjacent states who are providing significant supports through their National Guards. The message is clear, minnesota. We had a tragedy on monday night. We understand the work that we need to do and the generational pain that went into what happened with george floyd and that murder. But at this point in time, nothing we do to address those inequities, nothing we do to provide justice to george floyd and his family that i spoke with last evening, none of those things matter to any of these people who are out there firing upon National Guard, burning businesses of our communities, and making intent on disrupting any semblance of civil life. So in partnership with the mayors and the team that is here, throughout the day today, there will be peaceful protests that were previously scheduled. They will be large, as anticipated, and today will be an expression of that grief, of the loss of george floyd. There will be legitimate exercising of First Amendment rights. Every Single Person in this room will put all of these resources were talking about to protect their right to do that. To protect their right to gather as community. I will continue to stress, because it seems a lifetime ago, we are still in the middle of a pandemic and passed 1,000 deaths yesterday. We have hospitals on the verge of being overrun with covid19. The folks that are gathering out there, and if you watched on tuesday and wednesday, social distancing, masks, the masks last night were worn to disguise, they were not worn to try to do anything. The masks worn by people there were to cause confusion and take advantage of the situation. But the rest of us need to maintain that. For those wondering and asking the legitimate question, the safety and concern everyone in this room is up all night. The nightmare of these people starting fires that can jump in arson. At this point in time it is nothing short of a blessing that we have not had someone killed, an innocent by stander in this. As youre going to hear from commissioner harrington, they are adapting, receiving information together, fed by professionals in this in professional tactics in urban warfare, those types of things are happening with these people. And again they are getting what they want, they are getting on tv, they are seeing images. They have the governor of minnesota standing up here at 2 30 at night talking about how were moving things around and theyre getting what they wish. Today they are getting what they wish, they are going to have an overwhelming sense of safety, security and peace. They are going to see a coordination to the best of our ability to make sure that this stops and it ends. That is going to happen. And im speaking with governors across the country who are in the same situation trading information. Many cities are where we were on wednesday night and theyre expecting to be where we were on thursday night. And that is a situation that must end. So minnesotans, this is a challenging time. Our great cities of minneapolis and st. Paul are under assault by people who do not share our values, who do not value life and the work that went into this, and certainly are not here to honor george floyd. And they need to they need to see today that that line will stop and that order needs to be restored. With that, i want to welcome up mayor jacob fry, the minneapolis mayor and someone from the beginning saw this before any mayor in the country and requested National Guard support earlier than any mayor in the country. And now this situation is requesting the next step, a full mobilization. Mayor frye. Thank you, governor. The show of force tonight has got to be about safety, security, peace, and order. Our minneapolis residents are scared and rightfully so. Weve seen longterm institutional businesses overridden. Weve seen Community Institutions set on fire. And i want to be very, very clear. The people that are doing this are not minneapolis residents. They are coming in largely from outside of the city, from outside of the region to prey on everything that we have built over the last several decades. The dynamic has changed over the last several days. If you looked at tuesday, it was largely peaceful protests. The vast majority peaceful, the vast majority of people from our city, with a small group of people looking to have intentional disturbance. Gradually that shift was made and we saw more and more people coming from outside of the city. We saw more and more people looking to cause violence in our communities, and i have to say, it is not acceptable. If youre concerned, i get it. If you have family members or friends that are even considering protesting this is no longer about protesting. This is no longer about verbal expression. This is about violence and we need to make sure that it stops. Were in the middle of a pandemic right now. We have two crises that are sandwiched on top of one another. In order to make sure that we continue to have the necessary Community Institutions, we need to make sure that our businesses are protected, that they are safe, and that they are secure. So to our minneapolis residents, we are with you. We will be mobilizing the Largest Force that has ever come forward in the state of Minnesota History to help. We understand that youre concerned. We want to be there for you. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Mayor carter. Thank you, mayor frey. Thank you. What were experiencing right now is one of the most heartbreaking weeks in american history. Certainly in minnesotan history. We woke up at the beginning of the week to, as we all know, a disgusting, disturbing video of mr. George floyd being wrongfully killed. He was unarmed, he was not aggressive. He begged for his life. He called for his mom. And by standers screamed, this man is dying. And over the course of a 10 minute video we see the life squeezed out of mr. Floyd. Anger over his death is understandable. Sadness, pain, heartache, frustration is legitimate. We have in our community right now an enormous number of people of all ages, of all races, of all backgrounds, who agree that mr. Floyd should still be alive. We have in our community, an enormous number of people of all ages, of all races, of all backgrounds, of all neighborhoods who are looking to see not only one, but four all four of the officers involved in his death be fully held accountable. We have an enormous number of people in our community who are heart broken by the fact that the name, george floyd, does not stand alone in history, but that it joins a too long and too rapidly growing list of names of unarmed, unaggressive africanamerican men who lost their lives wrongfully at the hands of Law Enforcement. And the frustration that time and time again weve seen no one held accountable. We have an enormous amount of legitimate frustration. Of people who ask, when, how long will it take. People who ask, how egregious does it have to be. How well documented does it have to be for someone to be held accountable for George Floyds murder . That frustration, that pain is real, and its legitimate. And to all of the people in our community who believe what i just said, who wholeheartedly need the world to hear that mr. Floyd should be alive, that someone should be held accountable that we as a community, we as a culture, we as a society must do everything we can imagine to keep this from happening again, we stand with you. I stand with you. There are many, many ways for us to Work Together in a constructive manner that builds our communities, that empowers our communities. To speak up with a loud voice. The world is listening. There are opportunities for us to do that in a constructive manner. Unfortunately, there are also those among us who would seek to use this moment, who would seek to use his death as an excuse, as a cover, to advocate for the destruction of those same communities that have been most traumatized by George Floyds death. Those same communities that have been most traumatized by the dual crisis of a covid19 pandemic and an economic crisis were facing right now. Those same communities are being retraumatized right now. As our blackowned barbershops, as our immigrantowned restaurants, our local, generational, familyowned businesses are damaged and destroyed night after night. This must stop. I know the governor, i know mayor frey, myself wholeheartedly support the right of people to protest, the right of free speech, for people to say what they believe about the world, to speak up and say and participate in making this world a better place, that right to speak stops at destruction of lives, destruction of property, destruction of livelihood. In st. Paul last night, and across our twin cities, a curfew went into effect. Because we had a relative stillness in st. Paul, we didnt make an enormous number of arrests. But every Single Person we arrested last night, im told was from out of state. What we are seeing right now is a group of people who are not from here. As i talked to my friends who have been in this movement for a very long time, who wake up in this movement every day, and i ask them what theyre seeing, what theyre feeling, what theyre hearing, to a person i hear them say, we dont know these folks. We dont know these folks who are agitating, we dont know these folks who are agitating violence, we dont know those folks who were first in to break a window. And those folks agitating and inciting, are taking advantage of the hurt and anger and fear and the legitimate sadness that so many of our Community Members feel to advocate for the destruction of our communities. I echo the governors statements, i echo the mayors statements in that our police officers, our firefighters are facing something theyve never faced before. That alone would be very, very difficult to address. One thing that ive learned about the world, about minnesota and certainly about st. Paul, is every time ugliness raises its head in our community, the beauty of community, that beautiful spirit that Paul Wellstone once spoke about when he said we all do better when we all do better arises. Across the twin cities yesterday, across st. Paul yesterday, we saw countless neighbors show up for each other. We saw people show up with a broom and a bucket, a rag to clean, and just Work Together. They werent cleaning their cousins store or their uncles store. They were just coming to help each other, to clean up our city. Over the last couple of months, thanks to the fact that we in minnesota have a governor who took strong action early to protect minnesotans in this coronavirus pandemic, we showed that togetherness by staying home, we showed that togetherness by honoring the stayathome order that our governor has executed. And those efforts resulted in saving lives in our community. Right now, today, this week in minnesota we must show that same sense of togetherness. We must show that same sense of unity. We must show that same sense of community and cohesion. As we stand forward to say, we will not accept the brutal killing of unarmed black men. We will not accept George Floyds death and we will not accept the destruction of our communities either. Those two things, those two values, those two goals are not in competition. Theyre not in conflict with one another. Actually, theyre one and the same. Thank you very much. Thank you, mayor carter. Commission commissioner harrington. Im john harrington, the commissioner of the department of Public Safety. We were given the mission by the governor to restore order and to maintain and keep the peace. We have assembled the largest civil policing authority in the history of minnesota. Ive been in police for 40 years, and there has never been a time when i have had as many officers, deputies, and state Law Enforcement officials come together for a single mission. We are working together under a unified command to make sure that we can be out there to keep the peace. But i will tell you that we have seen a change over the last couple of days. We have seen from the earliest demonstration, which were Peaceful Demonstrations that were largely demonstrations of where people were trying to express the horror and trauma of having mr. Floyds life snuffed out, im not seeing Peaceful Demonstrations. And im not seeing, frankly, any empathy or any heart for mr. Floyd or for the communities that he loved and the communities that he belonged to. Last night we saw not only a change in the temperament and the approach of the of what i will call rioters, they werent demonstrating for a cause. They were not protesting for injustice. They were simply bent on destruction of property and they were bent on trying to hurt people. And they didnt really care who they hurt in the interim. We had multiple shots fired in both cities. Coming out of the rioters group. We had officers and National Guard officers National Guards men and women shot at. We had improvised explosive devices used to injure state troopers, dnr and others. We saw them break into post offices and we saw them try and destroy not only public property, but repeatedly set fires to private property with absolutely no i mean this, absolutely no sense that there were people who that was not just the it was not just the shop, it was not just their business, but that was their home. Thats where their sweat and blood and life was based out of and they burned it to the ground with no second thought. We also saw a shift in the numbers last night. As i said, we put together 2,500 Public Safety folks between National Guard and cops and state troopers and everybody else. That is an enormous number of Law Enforcement people. And we were confronted with tens of thousands of rioters. Let me repeat that. That little group that started out embedding themselves into George FloydsMemorial Service is no longer the little group. It is, in fact, the group that is throwing projectiles, throwing batteries, firing into crowds and setting fires and attacking firefighters, ems, Law Enforcement, sheriffs department, and National Guardsmen as they seek to provide safety in our community. We have watched these groups grow both in brazenness and weve watched them also grow in challenging approaches that we have had to adapt to. We have watched them take on efforts where literally there are 5,000 of them surrounding a building, trashing the building, and then when confronted, running back under the cover of darkness into residential areas. We have watched them try to destroy downtowns and its hard to drive through one of our downtowns without seeing the plywood thats up, whether it was as a preventative measure or simply to patch the holes that they had punctured into the buildings that support and are the anchors of our downtown areas. We are adapting to their tactics. We have made more arrests virtually every day. And we have focused on the fact that this is not a protest, where this is not a demonstration, while that we will always, and i repeat always, respect everyones First Amendment rights, those rights stop at the end of a molotov cocktail thrown into an open business. Those rights stop at the point you loot the liquor store in the neighborhood. Those rights stop when you loot the gas station, the mom and pop gas station in a neighborhood. And minnesotas Public Safety and minnesotas National Guard are gearing up, were getting bigger, and we are changing our approach because this is intolerable and we are coming to stop it. I dont want anyone to make any mistakes about that. We will make sure that those folks that come out today that want to mourn mr. Lloyds passing that their rights are, in fact, protected. But these rioters are, in fact, trampling on those rights by making it too dangerous for good people to speak their minds. And we cannot, as a community we cannot as minnesotans, we cannot as members of the twin Cities Community tolerate that. So you can expect to see Law Enforcement, the National Guard, state, county, and local in lock step tonight preventing, resp d responding, rescuing, and repelling attacks on our business businesses, on our personal safe safety, under the personal liberties of the twin cities area. At this time i introduce general jenson from the minnesota National Guard. I dont think i could speak with any more passion than the four gentlemen that just spoke in front of me. So what i will do is just give you a quick update on the last 48 hours of the minnesotas National Guard participation in this operation. 24 hours ago, we had approximately 400 guardsmen on state active duty in support of the governors executive order. As mentioned by the governor yesterday, we reached a peak that the minnesota National Guard had never been at before, over 700 soldiers and airmen mobilized in support of the governors executive order. And while it was the largest mobilization and as commissioner harrington described, the largest Law Enforcement operation in minnesotas history, it was not enough. Early yesterday we began mobilizing additional soldiers. And we expected and we expect by noon to have 2,500 soldiers and airmen mobilized and in support of the governors executive order. But thats not enough. The governor Just Announced the full mobilization of the minnesota National Guard for the First Time Since world war ii. What does that mean . It means were all in. We are all in with the two mayors to my left, their citizens, their communities that they represent. And were all in to the two Law Enforcement professionals to my right. Supporting them to ensure we bring stability and peace back to our two great cities. But even thats not enough, as governor walz just laid out, we had a conversation with secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and we are requesting National Level resources to come to the state to make key contributions to the operation that commissioner harrington has laid out. So to our two mayors and to our two Law Enforcement professionals and to you, governor, the minnesota National Guard is all in. Colonel langer. Thank you, governor. I dont intend on rehashing the ground that has been covered by all the folks up here saying the important things they said. I stand here as chief of the Minnesota State patrol to say we have done something weve never done in the history of our Organization Since 1929 in terms of the mobilization of our state troopers across minnesota that have come to the metro area to do what we can, to get back to an organization as the Minnesota State patrol, that we respect integrity, courage, honor and excellence. Thats who we are, and thats who we believe minnesotans are too. And our job is to get out there, in the middle of the mission that were confronted with right now, to stop the criminal behavior that we have been seeing and to prevent the criminal behavior that we regretfully anticipate we will see tonight and into the near future. Were working as hard as we can, because ive heard from plenty of minnesotans that they dont like what they see. They dont think what is going on represents who we are in minnesota. And they want to help. So we need your support, we need your prayers, and we need your thoughts as we work as hard as we possibly can to get minnesota out of this Current Situation and stabilized so that we can move forward and make the state what we believe it should be, one that is safe for every Single Person who lives or visits this wonderful state. Thank you. Thank you, colonel langer. Before i take questions, i think you have an assessment of whats on the ground. I am not going to make light of the seriousness of where were at. For those wondering if we were timid or something happened, i think you need to understand, even going into last night, this was the Largest Force and exhausted much of what we had going into that. The professionalism and the tactics were by the book. One of the things is, when youre a force of good and law and order, you play by the rules. When you are bent on destruction and harm and chaos, you dont have to do that. And it makes it very, very difficult. I think its important to note, too. That this call and the call up of the guard and the attempt to do this, is only going to make it more difficult tonight. The people listening do not see this as a deterrent. They are not somehow searching their soul and deciding this was stupid and destructive and wrong of what they did. This is the challenge they were looking for. The call will go out to join, and the call will be there to try and break the back of Civil Society and the people putting it forward. So minnesotans, im not telling you and trying to make this any lighter. This is going to be very difficult. And to set expectations they will slip away and they will start fires, they will do that, no matter how many people we have on the ground with where they were at, our goal is to decimate that force as quickly as possible that they have. Its to protect life, property and restore that order. But they will bring everything that they have to this. So i think it is very clear, and i would make that statement, and it will use social media, they will do whatever they want to do. Our expectation is to have the curfew in place, our expectation is to restore order. It will be a dangerous situation on the streets tonight. We will do everything in our power to restore that order that minnesotans expect. That minnesotans demand. But as each of these folks said, it is going to take all of us. I am grateful to our neighbors, our fellow americans who are helping and who are sending prayers and thoughts to the fellow governors, i am grateful to the president and the administration for continuing to be on the line and offer and provide assistance when needed. And i am most grateful to minnesotans. We built this state. We built the north star. Everything that we believe in, these people are trying to destroy. So if you are on the streets tonight, it is very clear, you are not with us, you do not share our values and we will use the full strength of goodness and righteousness to make sure this ends. With that im glad to answer any questions along with the folks up here. Peter. Can you be more specific about numbers. I dont think youre saying 10,000 people have come in from out of state or everything was done by people who were coming from from out of state. So where did that cross over from earlier demonstrations, and again what kind of numbers are you talking about ill let these folks no, its a good question. Peters question is about how do we know this . I want to be clear, as i said earlier in the week, this is not about saying its not us, its everybody from everywhere else. We understand the catalyst for this was minnesotans and Minnesotans Minnesotans inability to deal with inequ inequality, inequities and quite honestly the racism that has persisted. Im not denying that. What were at right now, were trying to get numbers on this, what i will try and ask the media to help us on, well release who some of the people are and theyll be able to trace the history of where they are and what theyre doing on the dark web and organizing. The best estimate i heard is about 20 of what we think is minnesotans and 80 are outside. Im not trying to deflect in any way, im not trying to say there arent minnesotans amongst this group. We know we have folks that may not be there too. But the vast majority right now and i think the difference is, this is where mayor carter, mayor frey spoke eloquently on this. Our heart and our solidarity are with folks who understand what happened monday night to george floyd must see justice and we must fix. But these folks are not them. Thats a good question and well get more data. Peter, do you want to followup on that . Yes, sir. Who are these people and whats happening right now in terms of you going after them . John, do you want to talk about that . As weve been making arrests, we have begun nalanalyzing the a of who we have arrested and begun doing what you think almost similar to our covid, its contact tracing. Who are they associated with . What platforms are they advocating for . And we have seen things like White Supremacists organizers who have posted things on platforms about coming to minnesota. We are checking to see do the folks that we have made arrests on and we have information, are they connected to those platforms . We have seen flyers about protests where folks have talked about theyre going to get their loot on tonight. And were checking to see, are they part of an organized criminal organization, and if so, what is that organization and how is that how are they organized . We have been working with both our state, our county, our local and our federal partners to start looking at issues around is this organized crime . Is this an organized cell of terror . Where are the where do these folks wheres the linkage is what were doing. Were in the process right now of building that information network, that Intel Network so we can link these folks together, figure out the organizations that have created this and understand how do we go after them legally. That is absolutely part and parcel of our mission. We are, in fact, Public Safety. We recognize there are legal issues involved here. But we are not going to tolerate the violence and the destruction that theyre using as a cover for the other illegal activity. You said youre going to release names . Youre going to release information . How will that happen . What form . I expect well be able to release some of the names of those folks that have been arrested, and some of the Background Information that we have pulled together and we hope to be able to do that today. Thank you. I think putting that in the media too is the help on that, and the the frustration we feel about who are they, why do they do this, it was one of the things i asked them to do was get this out clearly. Next question, please . Can you talk about your conversation with secretary esper and what are you expecting in terms of federal military assistance. This was the second conversation with chairman esper and general jenson being the lead with military affairs. Were looking at what are the resources, is there intelligence we can get from them, things they can provide us and talking about the mechanisms we use in the National Guard. Its important again for folks to think about the uniqueness of our nation protecting civil liberties, is control of the military and inside the United States is carried out by civilians, citizen soldiers and the National Guard. This goes back to 1804 act and when we redid it in 2007. I was the lead author in 2007 so i understand the militarization of civilization is a deep concern. Thats why theyre helping us access through this in the United States. Theyre providing us support of what theyre seeing, signal intercepting, they have from nsa and others massive support to see who the operators are. And i think, as you saw this and its been 48 hours playing out, just thinking about this, the wars we fought to protect our nation, the war on terrorism, all that, over the last 72 hours, these people have brought more destruction and terror to minnesota than anybody in our history. Thats who were up against. When you see them out there wearing a tshirt or a baseball hat and walking down, thats not who they are, thats not who this is. Its clear to change your mindset as were changing ours and keeping that line again for the respect for peaceful protesting, it has morphed over the last 48 hours to something very different. Yes . The curfew, talking about how youre going to change tactics and the amount of Law Enforcement that we have here, yet we have crews out all night, we didnt see Law Enforcement until well after 11 00. Its a question i brought to you. Its the sheer numbers. There were more Law Enforcement and they were activity engaged, they would tell you, like no time in the 90year history of that. Thats how big this was. One of the things about a curfew is, much like i continue to say, Civil Society is not maintained by the laws and threats of punishment. Its maintained by a sense that we share the same values. The curfew gives us the Legal Authority to make arrests of people out there. I would be clear to people tonight, what i believe and setting the expeckations on this, what you saw in previous nights will be dwarfed by what they do tonight. If you are an innocent by stander going out there tonight you will be swept up in this. Thinking of the logistics of arresting someone in a force, wants to break the line. If we step into a crowd of someone who threw a molotov cocktail at us, the minute you do that, theyre surrounding those folks, cutting us off. Theyre trying to incite a situation where deadly force is used and chaos ensues. Just to be very clear, the mayor of minneapolis requested National Guard support earlier than anyone in the country, it was mobilized at a level unforeseen in history by wednesday morning. The forces on the ground last night were dwarfing anything we saw going back in Minnesota History. Youre seeing the sheer numbers t of where the protesters were at, and that is our job and what were doing today to pull in the resources. To be clear, those who say federalize and bring them in, youre talking about 400 people under that scenario and also fundamentally changing how we go about policing and striking that balance. So if it were the indicates, throw everything at this, send out 100,000 people and go out and arrest every one of these people, thats the situation you would see on the streets. So there has to be tactical. It has to be with the support. We have to get the help from the public make sure youre not involved what i would ask today is if you know where these people are sleeping today, let us know and well execute warrants. Let us know if theres someone there to do this. If you know someone was down there protesting, help us. Call that in, tell us who they were. Theyre not from yulia skripmin but theyre staying down here. Yes . How many arrests have been made so far and do how would you attempt to go about forcing the cure few, putting Law Enforcement in harms way in the situation. Ill say this for the commissioner before he comes up here, this is one again i think all of us being as transparent as possible, im speaking now about arat this time titiculati. Some of it is the tactics if i tell you, and he tells you, theyll adjust. We changed in two nights theyll change with us. Ill let john talk about some of the basic techniques youre seeing. On the st. Paul side, as best these are all preliminary numbers we had around 20 arrests made on the st. Paul side. Over half were for burglary. When we talk about burglary, think about those Grocery Stores and the walgreens and the Liquor Stores and the pharmacies that have been broken into, as you look at the plywood thats up and about, they were significant numbers for burglary and then there was about a third of that total was for curfew violations in addition to that. On the minneapolis side, i believe there was, once again, close to 20, i think between 15 and 20 there, and once again, much of that was for curfew violations and or for destruction of property. So thats the numbers we have so far. We recognize thats only essentially st. Paul and minneapolis, we really need to get booking numbers, and we recognize that as there were fire bombings done throughout the metro area that we actually have were going to have to tap into washington, dakota counties also because we understand that they also had crimes committed in their jurisdictions. The mayors agreed that anyone out tonight after 8 00 is aiding and abetting and providing cover for these folks. Are you telling legitimate protesters to not help, provide cover . Peter, i didnt catch the second part of your question there. Are you telling folks in your cities that theyre providing cover for this activity when theyre out after curfew . Yes, by being out tonight, you are most definitely helping those who seek to wrong our city. And let me be clear about this curfew. You know, the people in our city, the residents of minneapolis, they are not abiding by the curfew because they dont want to get arrested. Theyre abiding by the curfew because they understand that its the right thing to do for our city. Londoners during the world war i and world war ii didnt turn off the lights because their government told them to, they turned off the lights because they recognized it was the right thing to do for their city and country. Thats the same thing were seeing here. Let me be clear about the numbers that weve seen. You know, early on there were so many questions about why dont we just arrest our way out of this . On wednesday and thursday. And why dont we have an officer placed each and every business. If we were to place an officer at all of the businesses that we were seeing getting attacked and looted, it would be one officer facing, in some instances, 100 people coming in. If they were to arrest one, the other 99 walk right by. We certainly dont want to incite additional violence by triggering some form of force. So this became a difficult situation that was not about planning or strategy, but about math. I want to be very clear. We did not have the numbers early on. This was about math. On wednesday afternoon, i called the governor as soon as i heard from our chief and requested assistance from the National Guard were appreciative to have those resources. We definitely need the numbers because we cant do it alone. And now that we do have a very concerted and unified contingent right now and so tonight yes, most definitely abide by the curfew. We need everybody complying. Can i ask mayor carter a question . Yes. Thank you. I think weve all made the distinction that there are people who are seeking to peacefully protest and there are other people who are agitators who are seeking to agitate and incite violence. The problem that were hearing from a lot of our friends who have been in the movement here in minnesota for a very long time is that you have somebody who will go forward and break a window or try to start a fire or something, as the governor mentioned, then run back behind the people who are trying to peacefully protest, and use them essentially as human shields. So i hear people saying, the curfew didnt work to stop the incidents that happened last night. To be clear, i dont think theres an expectation that people who are here from out of town to incite violence are going to say, shoot, we cant go out there because the mayor implemented an 8 00 curfew. What thats designed to do is to separate those well meaning Community Members who are heart broken, who are feeling legitimate anger and sadness and ask them, as the mayor just said, to stay home. To stay out of that, so we can separate who are the people in our community who are hurting who need to be able to peacefully express their First Amendment rights from who are the people in our community looking to break a window or start a fire or create destruction in our communities. I would echo exactly what the mayor just said, by virtue of being out in that space, by virtue of being part of a crowd that the people who hope to destroy our communities can hide in, that yes, would be aiding those who are attempting to destroy our communities. Thats the purpose of our curfew. Well gather at noon one second, well gather at noon with civil rights leaders, folks who understand this and have them speak to you about this very question. Go ahead. When you talk about full mobilization, how many National Guard troops are you willing to accept . Have you asked for . Can we get specifics . We have approximately 13,200 minnesota guardsmen, now all of them are not qualified to be fully mobilized because they havent conducted basic training or their military occupational skill training. When the governor tasked me this morning with full mobilization. His expectation that every soldier and airman, regardless of military job, is available for this operation. So at this time i dont have a number to give you at the top end 13,200, as i mentioned, the bottom end is where we are right now, 2,400 so itll be in between those two numbers as we work through this. Sir, the president has offered. [ inaudible ] has he been consulted on that and have you discussed it . That was going back to an earlier question, the question of the president offering that. This has happened before where they put their 82nd airborne and some of those on readiness. Weve been consulted early, i spoke to the president himself two days ago. I have spoken twice with secretary esper and joint chief milly along with the guidance of general jenson about what that would look like. The resources there provide us in material resources. There is a mechanism with the National Guard which we are relying on, which is quicker and better and much easier to do is to rely on our state partners around us to provide that. Federal troops, again, not from the community and i think for people to think about this, theyre not talking about mobilizing the entire United States army, probably talking in the neighbor of several hundred. That is an option that was put out there and support that goes with us. At this time we will be back here well bring some faith leaders to talk to you about it. We have planned demonstrations today, true demonstrations, true expressions of grief, true calls to heal our community and work. We will be out there and the folks that are here will be out there to support that and protect that and honor that right. Were asking those people, as soon as those are done, to disburse, to be out of the area and not do what the mayors i would associate with them, if you are out after 8 00 were you are aiding and abetting these folks, making it easier for them and giving them the cover they want. This is an unprecedented time were in, it may be an unprecedented time in american history, to my fellow governors who are experiencing this and the mayors, we stand with you as americans who value decency, who value community, who value the rule of law. And we stand together. This is an opportunity for our nation to truly become u