Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was critical of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s response to the unrest in his city in May 2020, saying later that year that the governor hesitated to send the National Guard as the city burned in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
Frey spoke out about Walz’s response during an August 2020 interview with the Star Tribune, telling the outlet his office made multiple dire requests for National Guard resources to the governor that were not granted until after the city was forced to abandon a besieged police precinct.
Texts and emails obtained by the Star Tribune for the story seemingly corroborate Frey’s claim, showing that Frey first placed a call to Walz on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, the second day of the unrest in Minneapolis, at 6:39 p.m. and asked the governor to call in the National Guard.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (Getty Images)
Walz, who has served as Minnesota’s governor since 2019, was selected as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Tuesday, reopening old wounds about his handling of both the COVID-19 pandemic and the riots that spread across Minneapolis in May 2020.
Frey’s May 27, 2020, call to the governor came after the mayor received a call from Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo just six minutes earlier, with Arradondo informing Frey that a Target near the police station was being looted and that he needed the National Guard.
“We expressed the seriousness of the situation. The urgency was clear,” Frey said of his call with the governor.
“He did not say yes,” Frey added. “He said he would consider it.”
Frey also told the Star Tribune that he explicitly asked the governor if his verbal request constituted a formal one, with the governor’s office confirming that it did. Walz’s office would later dispute that claim.
But the texts and emails obtained by the Star Tribune backed Frey’s story, showing the mayor’s spokesperson texted a small group of city employees at 6:28 p.m. that Wednesday that said Frey “just came out and said the chief wants him to call in the national guard for help at Third Precinct. Mayor appears intent on doing.”
Frey’s policy director later updated the group, texting that Frey “called the governor just now.”
Frey’s spokesperson updated the group again later that night, telling the employees that “Walz was hesitating.”
The mayor told the Star Tribune that he never received confirmation the National Guard was coming the rest of Wednesday night or the following morning.
Mayor Jacob Frey speaks to supporters at an election night party on Nov. 2, 2021, in Minneapolis. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
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The Minnesota Senate’s Joint Transportation and Judiciary and Public Safety Committee would later release its own findings of the sequence of events that night, with the Republican-controlled committee alleging that Walz “failed to act” as the unrest in Minneapolis continued to spin out of control, according to a report from the New York Post.
“It was obvious to me that he froze under pressure, under a calamity, as people’s properties were being burned down,” Republican state Sen. Warren Limmer told the New York Times of the report while also suggesting that the governor may have had “personal sympathies” toward the rioters.
The Senate report found that the request for the National Guard “was sent for at least 600 guardsmen at 9:11 p.m. Wednesday, May 27,” yet “Governor Walz eventually produced 100 guardsmen for the City of Minneapolis late in the evening on Thursday, May 28.”
The mayor’s office did make another plea for National Guard troops the next morning, May 28, this time with a written request for the National Guard that noted “widespread looting and arson” and that both protesters and first responders had been injured in the unrest.
“The ongoing situation is well-beyond the capability of our police and fire departments to respond,” Frey wrote in the request.
A spokesperson for Walz told the Star Tribune that the governor “knows how much planning goes into a successful” National Guard mission, noting Walz was a “24-year veteran of the Minnesota National Guard.”
“That’s why he pushed the City of Minneapolis for details and a strategy. He ordered the Minnesota National Guard to start preparing Thursday morning which allowed them to deploy to both St. Paul and Minneapolis that evening, per the Mayors’ requests,” the spokesperson said.
People carry items out of a Target store in the aftermath of extensive rioting, looting and arson in shopping and commercial areas of South Minneapolis after the killing of George Floyd, May 28, 2020. (Scott Takushi/MediaNews Group/St. Paul Pioneer Press via Getty Images)
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Walz’s office also accused Frey of not being specific enough in his request and argued that the mayor never mentioned a need to protect the city’s Third Precinct, which would later burn to the ground.
Walz eventually activated the National Guard at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 28, roughly 18 hours after Frey’s first request over the phone. The Star Tribune report notes that only about 90 soldiers were on the ground in the city by 10:30 that evening, though police officers had already evacuated the Third Precinct.
According to the Senate committee report, around the same time the National Guard was being mobilized and starting to arrive in Minneapolis, the governor’s daughter, Hope Walz, was given “access” to “confidential information that she then disseminated to the general public and rioters.”
Hope would go on to send multiple tweets that night seemingly tipping off protesters to the location of the National Guard.
“Could someone who actually has followers rely [sic] to the masses that have gotten ‘national guard’ trending that the guard WILL NOT be present tonight??” Hope, who the New York Post noted was born in 2001, tweeted on May 28, 2020.
“The guard can not be sent in within minutes,” she wrote in another tweet, adding that “it takes time for them to deploy because they come from all over the state.”
“To be clear, the national guard will not be present tonight,” she added.
An AutoZone store burns as protesters gather outside the Third Precinct in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020. (Mark Vancleave/Star Tribune via AP)
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“Just because someone asked for something doesn’t mean it’s happening right away or even happening at all,” read another tweet in reference to the request for the National Guard. “I don’t know about swat but what I do know is the guard will not be present arresting people tonight.”
Noting Hope’s tweets, the Senate report lashed out at Walz, arguing the governor “unnecessarily put police, Minnesota State Troopers, and the Minnesota National Guard in jeopardy” by sharing the information with his daughter.
Nevertheless, Walz held a press conference on Friday, May 29, 2020, blaming Frey for allowing the situation to spiral out of control, calling the city’s response to the unrest an “abject failure.”
But Frey claimed to the Star Tribune that the governor’s remarks were a “sharp departure from every conversation we had had at that point,” describing Walz’s comments as “definitely a hit in the gut.”
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Instead, Frey insisted that he did everything he could “through an extremely difficult situation.”
“I told the truth,” Frey said. “I relayed information as best I could to state partners. And we did what was demanded for the sake of our city.”
Neither Frey’s office nor the Harris campaign immediately responded to Fox News Digital requests for comment.
