The powder keg of riot season went off earlier than expected following the police-involved shooting death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright during a traffic stop that occurred Sunday in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. The officer who shot Wright, Kim Potter, used her sidearm when she meant to use her taser. The riots that started on Sunday night continued on Tuesday, with crowds attacking police and National Guardsmen protecting the Brooklyn Center Police Department.
The looting appears to have not been an issue last night, though I suspect that is mostly because the stores nearby have already been cleaned out.
My time back in the Twin Cities metro area brought back flashbacks to when I was on the ground covering the riots in south Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd last year. Whole sections of the city were torched, looting was rampant, and lawlessness was the only rule of the land. Now with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's trial expected to end in the very near future, everyone in the city is on edge and the recent outbreak of mass unrest has done little to ease the tension or confidence the leadership has the ability to stop the madness.
In order to prevent the same level of destruction in Minneapolis and St. Paul in case the verdict ignites more chaos this year, state and local officials enacted Operation Saftey Net, which brought in extra law enforcement and Minnesota National Guardsmen to the Twin Cities to be on stand by. Their presence was heavy in the downtown area, especially by the courthouse where the Chauvin trial is taking place.
But the Brooklyn Center riots showed a fatal flaw with the plan. Everyone was so focused on Minneapolis and St. Paul, other localities appeared to have been left out of the planning.
Night three of the riots in Brooklyn Center finally showed increased reinforcements of law enforcement and it looked as though the rioting was put to a stop sooner than Monday evening, but the damage to the community was already done. There is no excuse for local Minnesota officials to be caught off guard. Anyone could see as Sunday afternoon progressed, widespread anarchy was going to happen, and yet the National Guard, though in the area quicker than usual thanks to Operation Saftey Net, was not deployed to Brooklyn Center until it was too late.
This is not meant to be a knock on the officers who have put themselves in harm's way in recent days, it's rather a critique on how the local leadership can't seem to grasp what will happen after such unfortunate events. People will take advantage of the anger and use it to harm the local population who had nothing to do with said unfortunate event.
By Wednesday, multiple shootings have taken place, many local businesses have been heavily damaged, and rioters and looters have once again mostly walked free. All of that only serves to embolden those who want to cause chaos in the event they are unsatisfied with the coming Chauvin verdict, which is very likely.
I do not know what exactly will happen this coming year, but rest assured you can count on Townhall to provide you with the same great on-the-ground coverage that we carried out when the country went up in flames all throughout last year.