Walz's handling of George Floyd's death and protests under new scrutiny

In May 2020, as Minneapolis burned and mourned after the police murder of George Floyd, Tim Walz seemed cornered.

The governor of Minnesota faced a flood of criticism for not acting more quickly to restore order after Arson of a police station and numerous shops. When Walz mobilized the state's National Guard three days after Floyd's death, the move earned praise from the most unlikely of supporters: then-President Trump.

In a phone call with Walz and other politicians about a week after Floyd's death, Trump remarked, “What they did in Minneapolis was unbelievable.”

“They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately,” Trump said. according to an audio recording of the call from ABC News and other media.

Those comments and Walz's decisions immediately after Floyd's death have taken on new significance in recent days since Vice President Kamala Harris named Walz as her running mate.

After a turbulent week of campaigning with Harris, the until recently little-known governor of the Midwest launched his first solo campaign as vice presidential candidate this week with a speech at a union convention in Los Angeles.

Walz had been governor for less than two years and was still battling the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when Floyd was killed. His death on May 25, 2020, was captured on a bystander's livestream. He was seen writhing and begging for air while a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9.5 minutes. The incident forced a reckoning with police brutality and racism, and it sparked mass protests around the world, some turning violent.

“I think he struck a delicate balance: supporting the police while supporting members of the community, something many public officials are unable to do,” says Duchess Harris, a professor of American studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, whose research focuses on race, law, politics and gender studies.

Among Democrats, Walz's supporters have pointed to the chaotic weeks following Floyd's death to demonstrate his willingness to put aside partisan differences and work toward a common goal – a trait that stretches back to his time in Congress.

Republicans, for their part, argue that Walz's actions show that he is an irresponsible politician who was just waiting to be subpoenaed while arson and vandalism spread across his state's largest city.

But as president, Trump struck a decidedly different tone in a phone call with Walz and government officials on June 1, 2020 – a week after Floyd’s death.

“Tim, you called in a large number of troops and they knocked them out so fast, it was like bowling,” he said. Trump said he had planned to send federal troops “to get the job done right,” singling out the city's mayor, Jacob Frey, who had shown a “complete lack of leadership.” However, he did not criticize Walz at the time.

In the phone call, Trump called Walz “an outstanding guy” and later told him, “I don't blame you. I blame the mayor.”

But that was then. Walz's Republican running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, is now publicly accusing Walz of allowing “rioters to burn Minneapolis down.” The sometimes misleading or false claims are repeated in Republican attack ads and on social media.

On the social media platform X, the official account of the Trump campaign, “Team Trump,” posted: “Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in 2020, and the few who were caught were bailed out of jail by Kamala” – alluding to Harris' outspoken support for a bail fund set up to help people arrested during protests.

In the days following Floyd's death, Walz called the city's response a “miserable failure,” sparking a fierce blame game with Frey.

A number of follow-up reports pointed to significant deficiencies in communication and coordination that had led to an uncoordinated response by numerous law enforcement agencies.

A report on behalf of the City of Minneapolis said local leaders' unfamiliarity with protocols for requesting National Guard assistance “led to a delay in approving and deploying resources.”

A separate report of the State Senate – then controlled by Republicans – was even more scathing, accusing both Walz and Frey of “failing to recognize the gravity of the riots,” which caused some $500 million in property damage, and of “failing to respond in a timely manner to confront the rioters with the necessary force, due to the misguided philosophical belief that such action would only make the riots worse.”

If Walz had acted more decisively, the authors of the report say, “the unrest would have been brought under control much more quickly.”

Walz's supporters dismissed this criticism as an attempt to rewrite history.

Current Democratic-controlled Senate President Bobby Joe Champion said Walz “worked with a cross-section of the population” to coordinate a response to the unprecedented mass demonstrations that rocked Minneapolis after Floyd's death. Despite the criticism leveled against the governor, he did a “great job” of balancing the right to free speech with the need for safety and order, Champion said.

“Hindsight is always 20/20, and some will say what they could have done, would have done and should have done,” said Champion, who will become lieutenant governor under the state constitution if Harris and Walz win in November.

Anyone skeptical of Walz's record need only look at the numerous “recent legislative successes” aimed at eliminating “historic racial inequalities” that will ultimately impact crime rates, Champion said.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his wife Gwen attend a memorial service for George Floyd in June 2020.

(Julio Cortez/Associated Press)

Walz's political record is that of a “centrist Democrat who happened to control a state where Democrats had moved to the left,” says Michelle Phelps, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota.

Walz earned the respect of some in his party by helping to pass progressive legislation to expand free school lunches and protect transgender and abortion rights, she said, but he failed to pass legislation that “significantly challenged the powers of police in Minnesota.”

When violent crime rose sharply after Floyd's killing, he also pushed for hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding to increase police forces.

“If you look at him more holistically, you get a more centrist Democrat who is trying to thread that classic needle, like [to] “We need to curb illegitimate police violence while promising a sense of security to the citizens of the state,” said Phelps, who wrote a book about police reform in Minneapolis. “And that means giving the police more power while trying to make some small changes around the edges.”

And just as Harris for her Past as a prosecutor in California, Walz's record in the criminal justice system is likely to come under scrutiny. In recent days, some have taken issue with Walz's multiple interventions in high-profile criminal cases.

After Floyd’s death, the governor took the unusual step of Reassignment of the public prosecutor's office of the fired Minneapolis police officer who killed him to Attorney General Keith Ellison. He recently publicly questioned the top prosecutor in the county that includes Minneapolis over her handling of several cases, including one in which she charged a police officer with the murder of a black motorist.

Due to increasing pressure from law enforcement, District Attorney Mary Moriarty later dropped murder and manslaughter charges against the officer, accusing Walz of treating her differently than her male predecessor because she was a queer woman.

Toussaint Morrison, a filmmaker and musician, said that while Walz faced a difficult challenge in responding to the unrest, his decision to deploy the National Guard further escalated an already tense situation, with numerous soldiers using force against protesters. The following year, Walz again deployed the National Guard to respond to protests over the killing of a black motorist in a Minneapolis suburb.

“I saw someone who was targeting protesters, brutalizing them, trying to intimidate them. I understand that people want public safety – they want to feel safe. On the other hand, people want to be able to exercise their First Amendment rights,” said Morrison, a longtime organizer in the Twin Cities who supports families affected by police brutality. “And I say that as someone who will probably vote for Harris-Walz.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.