By Deena Winter, Minnesota Reformer
Public safety has proven to be the most difficult governing and political challenge of Gov. Tim Walz’s tenure.
The pandemic fueled a spike in violent crime, while Minnesotans marched against police brutality after the murder of George Floyd. While most protested peacefully, others looted stores and set buildings on fire, including the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct.
That in turn set off a mass departure of MPD officers; crime continued to rise in 2020 and 2021.
Vice President Kamala Harris was slammed by Republicans for encouraging people to bail out protesters after Floyd’s police killing.
After she tapped Walz to be her running mate, the Republican National Committee immediately called the duo “weak on crime, defund the police liberals” who “let rioters burn the Twin Cities while Kamala stepped in to fundraise for their bail.”
To the restive progressive base in his party, however, Walz and state lawmakers haven’t done enough to reform the criminal justice system.
For several years, public safety had Walz stuck in a political vice grip, and events had a way of acting as a tightening turn. Like many Democrats before Floyd’s murder sparked a national racial reckoning, Walz was if anything pro-police.
But after Floyd’s killing rocked the world, Walz was vocal about wanting to see the four police officers that were involved charged and convicted; nine police groups told him to back off and let the justice system do its work.
Amid the rioting and arson, Walz blamed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for the slow response, calling the city’s response an “abject failure”; Frey blamed Walz for failing to take his requests to bring in the National Guard seriously.
Former Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka recently told Fox News that “The mayor of Minneapolis … said to the governor, ‘I need your help. I need the (National) Guard.’ And that’s when the governor just sat on his hands. He froze. He didn’t do anything.”
A 2020 report by the Republican-controlled state Senate blamed both Walz and Frey of failing to act swiftly enough “due to an ill-conceived philosophical belief that such an action would exacerbate the rioting.”
A Minneapolis after-action review by independent auditors concluded city officials didn’t follow the necessary protocols to request assistance because the process “was unfamiliar to those making the requests.”
Trump, at a recent rally in St. Cloud, falsely said he saved Minneapolis by calling in the National Guard, even though it was Walz who sent in the troops. And ABC News recently obtained a recording of a phone call in which Trump praised Walz for his actions at the time.
Even as Walz has faced criticism for his response to the riots, he was pilloried for law enforcement targeting demonstrators and journalists.
Walz took responsibility and apologized to CNN reporter Omar Jimenez after he and his crew were arrested while doing a live television report on the Floyd protest. A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety declined to comment on whether any state troopers were disciplined for their actions during the protests unless the Reformer could provide the names of the troopers involved.
Days after Floyd was killed, Walz arranged to have Attorney General Keith Ellison take over the prosecution of the officers; civil rights activists applauded the move.
Police in riot gear stand guard outside the Brooklyn Center police station shortly after body camera footage was released of the fatal police shooting of a 20-year-old Black man. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer.
‘Breaking the wheel’ of police violence
Justin Terrell, who at the time advised the governor and lawmakers as executive director of the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage, said because the state took over the prosecution, Ellison was able to “break the wheel” of police violence and convict the officers.
At the time, Terrell didn’t expect the divided Legislature to do much on police reform, despite heavy pressure from civil rights and anti-police brutality activists. Two months after Floyd’s death, however, Walz signed a sweeping package of police reforms called the Minnesota Police Accountability Act.
The law imposed stricter standards for when deadly force is justified, emphasizing the sanctity of life; banned certain chokeholds; barred “warrior-style” police training; changed police arbitration rules; required more de-escalation training and reporting on use-of-force; and required that officers intervene if a colleague uses excessive force.
Walz called it “a critical step toward justice.”
But for progressives, it didn’t go far enough.
Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said activists pushed legislation to address police misconduct, but the governor’s office wasn’t interested in “real changes.”
“They basically passed some very milquetoast bill that wouldn’t do anything to change anything,” Gross said.
A little-noticed development in 2021 may eventually usher in the most far-reaching changes to Minnesota policing: Walz filled seven vacancies on the Police Officer Standards and Training Board, or POST board, an obscure but important police licensing panel with rule-making authority. He also appointed two more members under legislation he’d signed months earlier.
Now the POST board can take cops off the street for misconduct even if they haven’t been convicted of a crime or disciplined by their police department. It remains to be seen if the board will use its authority to prevent the next Derek Chauvin from taking an innocent life.
State Patrol and Department of Natural Resources conservation officers stand guard in front of a burned down apartment building on May 29, 2020 in Minneapolis. Law enforcement surrounded the area around the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct headquarters after riots broke out. Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer.
Walz goes hard to protect police station
During a 2021 traffic stop, this time in Brooklyn Center, Daunte Wright was killed by a police officer, sparking more protests, this time at the Brooklyn Center police station.
Hundreds of protesters lobbed water bottles and fireworks at police.
Walz redeployed Operation Safety Net — a coalition of law enforcement agencies formed to prevent rioting and looting during Chauvin’s trial — to Brooklyn Center, where they used chemical irritants, less-lethal munitions and flash bangs, injuring protesters, bystanders and journalists.
An Asian-American CNN producer was arrested and asked if she spoke English, and a Black New York Times photographer was repeatedly hit by officers, nearly breaking his camera.
Walz seemed intent on preventing another conflagration and didn’t apologize for the state’s show of force, bringing condemnation from his left flank again.
Civil rights leaders and over 40 progressive political groups called for Operation Safety Net to be disbanded, saying it escalated hostility and retraumatized people already reeling from the police killings of Floyd, Wright and others.
Wright’s killing came at a tense time in Minnesota history, as the state was wrapping up its case against Chauvin in the Floyd killing.
Ellison won a conviction against Chauvin on all three charges in April 2021, relieving pressure on the streets of Minneapolis.
That fall, Walz opposed a Minneapolis ballot initiative that would’ve replaced the police department with a new department of public safety, splitting with the attorney general and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and siding with Frey. Voters rejected the proposals and re-elected Frey.
Walz pivots, pushes for police funding
The metro area was seething with tension in 2021 as carjackers hit nearly every Minneapolis neighborhood; a string of children were killed by stray bullets; and out-of-control street racing left three young people dead.
In the spring of 2022, Walz directed state government to help Minneapolis tackle violent crime. Over 10% of state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents were pulled off their cases and redeployed to Minneapolis and the surrounding area.
Around the same time, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger began helping target violent crime, carjackings, illegal guns and gangs. Violent crime began dropping — as it did in many U.S. cities.
During his 2022 reelection campaign, Walz pushed for a $300 million infusion of state cash for local police departments.
The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association declined to comment for this story, and after remaining neutral in Walz’s first gubernatorial race, in 2022 the group endorsed his Republican opponent, Scott Jensen, in front of the burned-out remains of the MPD’s Third Precinct.
The MPPOA, which represents over 10,000 police officers, wanted more money to help with recruitment and retention as officers fled departments, especially in Minneapolis. Since Floyd’s killing, the group has gravitated toward Republicans.
In 2023, Walz pushed for — and got — that $300 million for cities, counties and tribal governments to spend on policing.
The trifecta passes sweeping reforms
Despite fears that the crime epidemic could take down Democrats statewide, Walz was re-elected and Democrats took control of state government in 2022.
Newly emboldened, they passed a slew of reforms in 2023, including an overhaul of the state’s prison system, making it more rehabilitative and less punitive. Prisoners can get out earlier and shorten their community supervision if they participate in rehabilitation programs.
Walz signed legislation that legalized marijuana and the possession of drug paraphernalia; limited probation to five years for most felonies (except for homicides and sex crimes); made phone calls free for prisoners; made it easier for people to expunge non-violent crimes from their records; made it easier to get clemency; and invested $70 million in community violence prevention grants.
In both 2023 and 2024, Walz signed major gun control legislation, including a so-called red flag law, mandated background checks on private sales, and a stiffer penalty for straw purchases.
Still, Walz again disappointed more progressive Democrats when he yanked a murder case from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, a progressive former public defender.
“She won by an overwhelming majority,” Gross said. “We want the kind of reforms that she’s putting into place, and the governor and attorney general’s office are torpedoing those by their constant threats to take away cases that involve law enforcement misconduct … So the playing of politics with police accountability has been very frustrating for us.”
Police spray mace as demonstrators shield themselves behind several umbrellas at the Brooklyn Center Police Department for the fourth night of protests Wednesday, April 14, 2021 after former officer Kimberly Potter shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop earlier in the week. Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer.
‘It’s just insane what he’s been able to get done’
While Republicans have sought to paint a picture of Minnesota — and the Twin Cities in particular — as no-go war zones, violent crime in Minnesota remains well below the U.S. average and has fallen sharply since peaking in 2021.
Terrell, now executive director of the Minnesota Justice Research Center, said Walz has signed transformative legislation.
“In a divided Legislature, we got 20 bills passed that made changes to police reform,” he said.
Terrell is most proud of restoring felons’ voting rights, overhauling the prison system, and restructuring the state police licensure board.
As Terrell points out, the Walz administration was the first state in the nation to enter into a consent decree with a city over discriminatory policing; the federal government typically plays that role, though in the case of Minneapolis, there’ll be both state and federal monitoring.
“It’s just insane what he’s been able to get done in a post-George Floyd political landscape,” Terrell said. “Obviously, we like to press the governor on some of his leadership, but frankly, at the end of the day, the biggest demonstration of his leadership is the ability to work with the Legislature and the people to get those bills to his desk so that he can sign into law things that make a huge difference.”
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.
