Gov. Walz good morning, everyone. We spoke last night at 2 30 a. M. We provided in update of a highly dangerous and rapidly evolving situation with folks at withon destroying property no regard for safety of , and certainly no desire to make a statement other than destruction and chaos. Minnesotansank the who abided by the curfew. I want to thank our responders who are 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 it as difficult as possible to maintain that order. My mission has been very clear to the folks in minnesota in conjunction with the mayors of minneapolis and st. Paul, is protection of citizens is our top priority, and maintaining and restoring civil order on the streets. I think what is really important to recognize is the tactics in the approach that we have taken had evolved and need to evolve the same way. Live sensitivity to 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 communities to memorialize that on tuesday night. By thursday it was gone in last night was a mockery of pretending this was about George Floyds death. Our communities of color and our indigenous communities row find fret fighting handinhand for things that took generations to build. Infrastructures and nonprofits that have served the struggling community were torn down and burned. By people with no regards for what went into that. Lets be very clear. Minneapolis isn no longer, in any way, about the murder of george floyd. It is about attacking civil , instilling fear and disrupting our great cities. With that being the case, as we indicated last night, our top six again, it our tactics again, is to try to reduce loss of life and restore order. We mobilized the largest mobilization by National Guard that were in the field last night. We pulled in state patrol and state assets for all fours. This is not an impudent number of people we can pull. This is a highly trained, highly organized force, that when every single one of them is up and operating, is at about 700. You cannot operate all the time on that. The same thing with the minnesota National Guard. And of course, the cities. As you saw this expand across the United States, and you start to see whether it be domestic terrorism, whether it be ideological extremists, or whether it be Internet International destabilization of how the country works, those elements are present. I spoke early this morning with the secretary of defense, esper, and the chairman of the joints on theof staff to update situation, receive their situation report as they are seeing it across the country, and to discuss courses of action of going forward. In consultation with the mayors and the resources they have, and to be very clear as you witness this, whether it be new york, denver or louisville or las inas, there is no mayor america that has the resources to push back on an organized attempt to destabilize civil societal society with no regard of life or property. Morning, i ams authorizing and talking to general jensen to fully mobilize minnesota National Guard. In action that has never been taken in the history of the minnesota National Guard. For those minnesotans who are wondering, where are the there . Cks and police out the situation was so broad and the tactics were so bent on causing disruption, that every Single Person we have mobilized, and again, the largest in state history last evening, was engaged in that. By this afternoon, our hope is to exponentially have that force out there to use all of the resources in the state and our partnerships of sister cities across the counties to help us. Initial calls and will be speaking with the governors of adjacent states who will provide significant support through their National Guards. Business the message is clear, minnesota, we had a tragedy on monday night. We understand the work we need to do and the generational pain that went into what happened with george floyd and that murder. 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 none of those things matter to any of those people who are out there hiring upon National Guard, burning businesses of our communities, and making intent on disrupting any semblance of civil life. Mayorsnership with the and the team that is here, throughout the day to day today their world there will be protest scheduled. They will be large, as anticipated. Today will be an expression of that grief of the loss of george floyd. There will be legitimate exercising a First Amendment rights. Every Single Person in this room will put all of these resources we are talking about to protect their right to do that. To protect their right to gather as community. I will continue to stress, because it feeds a lifetime ago. We are still in the middle of a pandemic and passed in thousand deaths yesterday. We have hospital still on the verge of being overrun with covid19. The folks that are gathering out there, and if you watch on tuesday and wednesday, social distancing masks. The masks were worn to disguise, not to do anything. Warned to cause confusion and take advantage of the situation. But the rest of us need to maintain that. But you are asking the legitimate question, the safety and conserve that everyone is up on my. The nightmare that these people are starting fires. Point in time, it is nothing short of a blessing that. E have not had someone killed that situation can be expected to deteriorate further with these people. Hear froml commissioner harrington, they are a debt doing and receiving information. They are being fed by professionals and professional tactics in urban warfare. Those things are happening to these people. As i said, they are getting what they want. Are are getting on tv, they seeing the images. The governor of minnesota is up. At 2 30 at night talking about how we are moving things around. Today they will get what they wish. They will have an overwhelming force of safety, security and , and the surrounding neighbors will provide. They will see a coordination to the best of our ability to make sure that the stops and ends. That will happen, and i am speaking with governors across the country who are in the same situation, they are expecting to be where we were on thursday night. That is a situation that must end. Minnesotans, this is a challenging time. Of minneapoliss and st. Paul at under assault by people who do not share our values or value our work. And are not here to honor george floyd. Today that that line. , and that order needs to be restored. With that, i want to welcome up mayor jacob fry, the minneapolis from thed someone who very beginning, saw this and requested National Guard support earlier than any mayor in the country. Is requestingion the next step of full mobilization. Ry thank you, governor. The show of force tonight as got security,t safety, peace and order. Our minneapolis residents are scared, and rightfully so. We have seen longterm institutional business is overridden. We have seen Community Institution set on fire. To be very, very clear. The people that are doing this are not minneapolis residents. In largely from outside of the city, from outside of the region, region to prey on everything we have built over the last several decades. The dynamic has changed over the last several days. At tuesday, a was largely peaceful protests, the vast majority peaceful and from of city with a Small Group People looking to have intentional disturbance. Made,lly that shift was and we saw more and more people coming from outside the city. We saw more and more people looking to cause violence in our communities. I have to say, it is not acceptable. If you are 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. We are in the middle of a pandemic right now. We have two crises that are sandwiched on top of one another. Sure that weake 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. 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 you are concerned, we want to be there for you. Mayor carter . Carter what we are experiencing right now is one of the most heartbreaking weeks in american history, for minnesota in history. We will start with the beginning know,s week, as we all disgusting and 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 bystanders screamed, this man is dying. Over the course of the 10 minute squeezed see the life out of mr. Floyd. Death isr his understandable. It,ess, pain, hard frustration heart ache, 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 has an enormous number of people of all races, of all backgrounds, of all neighborhoods were looking to four of only one but all the officers involved in his death be fully held accountable. There is an and or miss number of people in our community who are heartbroken by the fact that the name george floyd does not stand alone in history, but that a too long and too rapidly growing list of unarmed, and aggressive africanamerican men lost their lives wrongfully at the hands of Law Enforcement. Frustration that time and time again we have seen no one held accountable. Enormous amount of legitimate frustration of people who ask, when . How long will it take . People who ask, how agree just doesnt have to be . How blatant, hell welldocumented does it have to be for someone to be held accountable for george floyd murder. George floyd that frustration and pain is real and legitimate. To all of the people in our community who believe in what i just said, who wholeheartedly think that mr. Floyd should be alive and someone should be held accountable, and we as a community, culture and 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 in ark together constructive manner, that builds our community, that empowers our communities. To speak up with a loud voice. The war 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 seekhis moment, who would to use his death as an excuse, as a cover to agitate 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 that we are facing now. Those same communities are being read traumatized right now. Barbershops,owned as our immigrant owned restaurants, as our local, generational family owned diseases are damaged and straight owned businesses are damaged and destroyed night after night. This must stop. I know the governor, i know mayor fry at 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 ofak stops at destruction lives, destruction of property, destruction of livelihood. Lastnight, and across our twin cities, a curfew went into effect. Because we had a relative stillness in st. Paul, we did not make an a number of arrests. But every Single Person we arrested last night, i am told, was from out of state. What we are seeing right now is a group of people who are not from here. Who talked to my friend, has been in this movement for a long time, who wakes up in this movement every day, i asked them what they are feeling. Say, weson, i sure them dont know these folks who are agitated or inciting violence. We dont know who these folks are who are breaking windows. Those folks who are agitating hard taking advantage of the pain, of the hurt, of the frustration, of the anger of the very real and legitimate sadness that so many of our Community Members feel. Destructionfor the of our community. I echo the governor statements, i echo the mayors statements in that our police officers, our firefighters are facing something they have never faced before. That alone would be very, very difficult to address. One thing that i have learned about the world, about minnesota, and certainly about paul, is that. Every time ugliness raises its head in our community, the beauty of community, that youthful spirit that was spoken about when it says 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 toand just work together. They were cleaning their cousins store or 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 today to work in this pandemic, we showed that togetherness by staying home. We showed that togetherness by honoring the stayathome orders our governor has executed. Resulted inforts 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. Say we willward to not accept. We will not accept the brutal killing of unarmed black men. We will not accept George Floyds death. We will not accept the discussion destruction of our communities, either. Those values, those goals are not in competition, they are not in conflict with one another. Actually, they are one in the same. Thank you very much. And the same. Thank you very much. Thank you, mayor carter. Commissioner harrington. Im john harrington, commissioner of the department of Public Safety. The department of Public Safety was given the mission 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 policing for 40 years, and there has never been 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 we have seen a change over the last couple of days. From the earliest demonstrations, which were Peaceful Demonstrations that were largely demonstrations where people were trying to express the horror and trauma of outng georges life snuffed not seeing Peaceful Demonstrations, and im not seeing, frankly, any empathy or any heart for mr. Lloyd or for the communities that he loved and the communities he belonged to. Not only a we saw change in the temperament and approach of what i would call rioters they were not demonstrating for a cause. They were not protesting injustice. They were simply bent on destruction of property, and they were bent on trying to hurt people, and they did not really care who they hurt in the. Nterim we had multiple shots fired in the cities coming out of riders group. We had officers and National Guardsmen and women shot at. We had improvised explosive devices used to injure state troopers and others. Break into post offices and we saw them try to 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 their shop, 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. 2500said, we put together Public Safety folks between National Guard and cops and state troopers, everybody else. That is an enormous number of Law Enforcement people, and we were confronted with tens of. Housands of rioters let me repeat that that outle group that started embedding themselves into George Service is noal longer those groups. It is, in fact, the group throwing batteries, firing into andds, and setting fires attacking firefighters, ems, Law Enforcement, sheriffs department, and national as they seek to provide safety and hour communities in our communities. We have watched these folks grow in brazenness, and we have watched them also grow in challenging approaches that we have had to adapt to. Take onwatched them efforts where literally, there are 5000 of them surrounding a building,trashing the and then when confronted, running back under the cover of darkness into residential areas. Them try anded destroy downtowns. Its hard to drive through one of hour downtowns about seeing the plywood that is up, if it was a preventative measure or simply to patch the holes that they had punctured into the s 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 as this , where this ist not a demonstration, that we will always and i repeat always respect everyones First Amendment rights, those end of aop at the molotov cocktail thrown into