MINNEAPOLIS— Julia Hinton walked past the Nicollet Mall in the city center on Monday morning and watched a man install plywood over the doors and windows of Chophouse 801 in 8th Street and Nicollet Avenue. Armed troops and military vehicles stood a few blocks lower on the 6th level near the Saks Off Fifth store, and a few others lay the 9th road to the one already on board Target.
“It’s like we’re getting ready for war or something,” she said of the city’s preparations for a verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with the death of Blackman George Floyd in May. . The jury began deliberating after closing arguments Monday.
“It’s just so much,” she said. Hinton (53) said.
Without knowing how quickly a verdict could come – and whether the ruling will revive the looting and arson that damaged parts of the city this past summer – Minneapolis has spent the past few days tightening security, including the strengthening of temporary barriers around government buildings.
National Guard troops in the Uptown area of Minneapolis.
Security plans were accelerated last week after a Minneapolis-based suburban police officer shot dead 20-year-old Blackman Daunte Wright, an action police officer described as accidental, after she appeared to have confused her gun for a Taser. Wright’s death resulted in another round of protests in the Twin Cities region. On Monday night, dozens had already started marching and chanting slogans in the city center near the Minneapolis courthouse.
According to Major General Shawn Manke, adjutant general of the National Guard in Minnesota, the mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis requested additional assistance from the National Guard, which deployed more than 3,000 troops throughout the area.
Law enforcement officials and community leaders said Monday they will seek to ease tensions following the ruling, while helping to ensure people have safe spaces to gather or protest.
“We know we have a city that is in mourning, that is in grief,” said Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo. “It’s not about arresting people.”
The trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd, went to the jury on Monday after the prosecutor and the defense delivered their closing arguments. WSJ’s Joe Barrett reports. Photo: John Minchillo / Associated Press
Yet many in Minneapolis remained uncomfortable, especially next to Nicollet. The avenue, which stretches from the city center to the southern border of the city, has become a focal point for protests, as well as looting and arson after the death of Mr. Floyd, and some blocks still carry the remains.
Fencing and barbed wire on Monday surrounded the fifth district of Minneapolis police near the 31st, where crowds gathered several nights this past summer and sometimes clashed with police. Across the street was a garbage can and two evergreen plants left over from the Wells Fargo bank branch that were burning amid the unrest.
At Finer Meats & Eats, on the corner of the 38th, owner Doug Meyer and several of his customers said they watched the trial regularly and hoped the outcome would not put their neighborhoods back in the crosshairs.
“It was crazy. I saw it from my house – the smoke and the things in the air, the helicopters, “Pamela Wilkes recalls of the summer when she and her 80-year-old father, Tom, bought several cuts of meat on Monday. Mr. Wilkes is worried about what could happen if the jury decides to arrest Mr. Chauvin to jump free.
Pamela Wilkes and her father Tom at Finer Meats & Eats in Minneapolis.
“If he is not convicted, we will all be very difficult,” he said.
“I feel confident he will be found guilty,” said Steven Gonzalez, another client. He stopped to get bones for his dogs. “If he does not do it, it’s going to be Rodney King beforehand, except in Minneapolis and ten times worse.”
Mr. Meyer, whose family has run the meat market on the corner of 38th and Nicollet for about 60 years, says he expects emotions to flare up regardless of the verdict and plans to watch outside his shop at night – just as he did last summer.
Doug Meyer, owner of Finer Meats & Eats.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Mr Meyer said. “I just have a feeling it’s going to be really ugly for a week or two.”
Archaeologist Geoff Jones stopped a few blocks on the sidewalk outside Glam Doll Donuts on Nicollet near 26th Street and recalls how part of his neighborhood in the nearby Powderhorn area went up in flames last summer, although he suffered that kind of damage. opportunists and not local protesters.
He said it was stressful to see the city preparing again for unrest, especially given how the National Guard troops were now armed with long rifles, as opposed to the helmets, shields and other protective equipment they had in the past years.
“It makes me wonder what they expect,” he said. “It’s not the kind of equipment you wear for protest.”
In the street at the City of Lakes Waldorf school on the corner of the 24th, some 6th, 7th and 8th pupils started waiting for a verdict by taking part in a march to protest racial injustice that took place at a number of environmental schools. Minneapolis schools were closed Wednesday through Friday for personal learning pending the verdict.
Faculty chair Marcee Hansen, who lives in the third neighborhood, which was also hit hard last summer, followed the group as they circled the block behind the school, with the plates of Black Lives Matters and chanting as they marched.
“No justice, no peace,” cried Mrs. Hansen out as she walks past a playground full of younger students. “Say his name!” a pint-sized girl responds with her fist.
Without knowing how quickly a verdict could come in the Chauvin trial, Minneapolis has spent the past few days tightening security.
Write to Deanna Paul by [email protected]
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