Late Saturday night, The Daily Wire reported, St. Paul mayor Melvin Carter walked back remarks made earlier in the day blaming out of state agitators for violent riots in Minneapolis.
Sunday morning, the Hennepin county jails records showed evidence that the “overwhelming majority of people arrested in connection with the Minneapolis unrest have Minnesota addresses,” according to local news.
“Of the 45 people arrested for rioting, unlawful assembly, stolen property, burglary or robbery on May 29 and May 30 so far, 38 had Minnesota addresses, according to publicly available jail records,” Minnesota’s local Fox affiliate said. “Six had out-of-state addresses, and one person didn’t have address information listed.”
“[A] civil arrest list provided by the public information officer of the St. Paul Police Department shows 12 of the 18 people arrested from Thursday through 6 a.m. Saturday were from Minnesota,” USA Today added. “Five of them are from St. Paul, three are from Woodbury (part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area), two are from Minneapolis, one is from Mankato and one is from St. Louis Park. Four are from out of state and two did not have cities of residence listed.”
Minnesota officials insisted, Saturday, that most of those individuals who disrupted anti-racism protests and instigated violence and destruction were from out of state. Many commentators later added that the Minnesota riots were the work of “white nationalists” who organized an effort to disrupt peaceful demonstrations and fan the flames of racial tension.
“I want to be very, very clear: The people that are doing this are not Minneapolis residents,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said Saturday.
“There are detractors. There are white supremacists. There are anarchists,” Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan later added.
A security expert, speaking to USA Today, noted that there were likely far more anarchists involved in the Minneapolis riots than white supremacists: “intelligence reports from his colleagues indicate most of the hard-core protesters in Minneapolis are far-left or anarchists, and that far-right groups have not yet made a significant appearance.”
Looting, the expert added, is “typically done by locals.”
Locals, however, told the outlet that they are getting tired of violence.
“There’s civil rights and then there’s burning things down,” one resident, who spoke to USA Today while helping to clean up broken glass outside a looted Wallgreens, said. “During the day, everything is peaceful. It’s only at night when things happen. Once night falls, please, go home. When it’s dark out and you’re there, you’re not making anything better.”
Around 150 people have been arrested for “rioting” in Minneapolis so far. Jail records are available online through the Hennepin County Sheriff’s website. They join thousands arrested around the country Saturday following peaceful demonstrations that became increasingly violent and destructive over the course of the afternoon and evening.
Although many cities called a curfew and began arresting protesters en masse Saturday night, the violence resulted in at least 3 deaths, according to Fox News.
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