(Fox News) With Minneapolis burning during riots over the death of George Floyd in police custody in 2020, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz played a central role in the debate over policing and crime in the United States at the time.
Anti-police protests quickly spread from Minneapolis to the rest of the country. He was criticized for dragging his feet in helping city police quell the unrest, withholding the National Guard for days. Years later, he finally called rising crime “unacceptable” and stepped up state support for the embattled city. Then Vice President Harris, the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee, named Walz as her running mate on Tuesday.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate and running mate of former President Trump, poked at Walz’s 2020 record Tuesday, calling his addition to the Democrat ticket “an interesting tag team.”
“If we remember the rioting in the summer of 2020, Tim Walz was the guy who let rioters burn down Minneapolis,” he said of the riots that began in Minnesota in response to the death of Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis. “And then Kamala Harris was the one who bailed the rioters out of jail.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrives to speak at a press conference on Aug. 1, 2024, in Bloomington. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Rioting over Floyd’s death in Minnesota soon led to fiery demonstrations across the country, as well as police morale and staffing issues that continue to this day, and Walz has been criticized for allowing the chaos to fester by delaying the deployment of the National Guard.
Then he got the state involved in the prosecution of Kim Potter, a White police officer involved in the death of a Black man. As recently as this year, Walz was accused of interfering in another unrelated police shooting case. But he hasn’t posted to X about crime since April.
“Kamala has decided to lean into being the candidate of urban chaos,” said Paul Mauro, a former NYPD inspector who has been critical of leftist police and bail policies in liberal-led cities. “She already had defunding and bail reform in her portfolio. Adding Walz firms up the Dems’ position as the party of burning cities and attacking cops in the name of progressive causes. Say what you want, she’s not hiding what she’s about.”
A fire burns inside an auto parts store across from the Minneapolis police Third Precinct station on May 27, 2020, during protests over the death of George Floyd. (Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune via Getty Images)
He took office in January 2019 and one of his first official moves was to create a diversity and equity commission.
