Twin Cities Riots

I watched the 1 hr press conference that was convened by Gov. Tim Walsh at 1:30 AM last night.  The mayor of Minneapolis Jacob Frye, the Commissioner of the Department of public safety John Harrington and the commanding office of the National Guard Maj. Gen. Jon Jensen were all present and spoke.  There was a strong unity message.  I was impressed that so far nobody has been killed despite people shooting at the National Guard.

There was a clear message that what started out as a protest against police brutality and killing has morphed into something else at this point.  I use the term morphed loosely because there is no real evidence that there is continuity between protesters and rioters.

There was evidence for example that drug cartels were operating to secure their distribution networks and that criminal enterprises were behind a lot of the looting and general chaos. I received an email that large retail pharmacy networks were closed and in many cases they were looted and prescriptions and other pharmaceuticals were stolen.  There was information that armed white supremacists were in the area and a photo of armed men standing in front of a Target store. There is video evidence that white men wearing all black clothing and face masks are vandalizing buildings and being confronted by protesters.  St. Paul has previous experience with anarchists from 2008 when they disrupted police operations at the time of a Republican National Convention.

There is probably a significant element of people who have the general solution to "burn everything down".  I encountered them during Vietnam War protests. They were the driving force behind the radicalism of the 1970s that led to 1900 domestic bombings in 1972 and the single most destructive act of sabotage in American history up to that point - the bombing of Sterling Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus.

I think it is a reminder to all of us how tenuous civil order can be.  We have all observed these behaviors in one way or another.  At the societal level, Americans are far too self-congratulatory as being "the best" when we clearly have done a very poor job of correcting racism and other forms of discrimination, mass shootings that are so routine they are part of the culture, and economic inequality. Addressing all of those dimensions lead to a preference over social order than not - and keep the opportunists in check.

The lesson from the call to violent revolution in the 1970s was that it eventually fell flat because nobody was interested apart from a few of the leaders of the radical organizations at the time. They made an active effort to expand and recruit more members to do more bombings and kill more people. The average man and woman on the street just wasn’t interested.  Life in general could be problematic but it was clearly preferable to anarchy.

Religious and civic leaders are making broad appeals today to their constituencies to remember the triggering event and actively work on reforming the associated factors of police brutality, racism, and justice for the victim and his family. But they are also reminding people to stay off the streets and remember that these changes need to occur in the context of community and cooperation.  

At the time I am writing this, the Governor has apparently mobilized the entire Minnesota National Guard or a total of 13,000 members.  That number was just 1,000 yesterday.  Given the effort and current uncertainty, I hope that it will be possible to look at the anatomy of this riot and draw clear markers around some of the elements involved.  I am sure that will not be an easy task.  But there is going to be political pressure to blame peaceful protesters for the riots and try to detract from their cause. That gives criminals and agitators a pass and it can also be used to emphasize some of their own pro-chaos messages.

The righteous protest that an innocent black man was detained using excessive force and killed by the police cannot be obscured by the subsequent riots.  Those responsible need to be prosecuted. Peaceful law-abiding protesters are not rioters.

And this cannot happen again in the state of Minnesota or anywhere else.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

Graphics Credit:

Minneapolis Riots map was apparently compiled by a number of anonymous users. I am posting it here because it is being used by some Twin Cities newspapers.  There is an extensive list of businesses that have been looted.  Many of them are pharmacies.  See the list at this link.

Current Evidence:

1.   St. Paul Mayo Melvin Carter: "Every single person arrested last night was from out of town".







2.  Not the first time that protesters have attacked the Twin Cities.  Here is a 2008 incident where "anarchists" attacked St. Paul and "took control" of the city for several hours:  https://youtu.be/gkZvtGCh5YA