President Donald Trump’s administration has denied a request from Minnesota’s governor for hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild parts of Minneapolis following the George Floyd protests and riots several weeks ago.
A spokesperson for Gov. Tim Walz’s office confirmed on July 10 that the funding wasn’t approved.
“The Governor is disappointed that the federal government declined his request for financial support,” Teddy Tschann, the spokesperson, said in a statement to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and other news outlets. “As we navigate one of the most difficult periods in our state’s history, we look for support from our federal government to help us through.”
Walz, a Democrat, had asked the federal government for up to $500 million in aid and asked Trump to declare the city a “major disaster” area following rampant arson incidents, looting, and riots across the city in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.
In a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the governor said that what happened in Minneapolis was the second-most destructive civil unrest incident in U.S. history after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Walz said that about 1,500 businesses across the Twin Cities area were damaged due to vandalism, arson, and looting, with the “heaviest damage” occurring in “major corridors of commerce and public accommodation” such as in Lake Street in Minneapolis.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) Thursday also issued a letter to Trump in response to Walz’s request on July 9 and asked for a “thorough and concurrent review” of the response so “every governor, mayor, and local official can learn from our experiences.”
“If the federal government is expected to assist in the clean-up of these unfortunate weeks, it has an obligation to every American — prior to the release of funding — to fully understand the events which allowed for this level of destruction to occur and ensure it never happens again,” Emmer said.
The Minneapolis City Council, in the wake of the George Floyd unrest, passed a measure 12-0 to work toward dismantling and replacing its police department.
“The City Council voted today to advance a proposed ballot measure that would ask Minneapolis voters to amend the City Charter to create a new Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention and remove the Police Department as a charter department,” the City of Minneapolis wrote in a statement on June 26.
But black community members issued a plea to City Council members last week, saying that there is an ongoing crime wave occurring across Minneapolis in the wake of calls to abolish or defund police departments.
“When the City Council start talking about abolish and dismantling law enforcement it’s destroying, it’s destroying our community right now,” said Al Flowers, a community activist, according to FOX9.
“With these calls to abolish the police and no real substantive plan to follow, those words have led some folks in our communities to believe that they have a sort of open season on their enemies,” said Alicia Smith, the executive director of the Corcoran Neighborhood.
The Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, has said he does not want the police department to be dismantled.
From The Epoch Times
