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Minneapolis Manufacturing Company Packs Up And Leaves, Says City Is Not Safe

   DailyWire.com
Riot police officers amid flames by petrol bombs thrown by protesters close to the U.S. embassy, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd , in Athens, Greece on June 3, 2020. (Photo by Panayotis Tzamaros/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Photo by Panayotis Tzamaros/NurPhoto via Getty Images

A Minneapolis, Minnesota, manufacturing company is packing up and leaving the city after seeing its buildings burn in a series of riots last week, and it may be just the first of many businesses to relocate following a City Council decision to defund and disband the Minneapolis Police Department.

“A Minneapolis manufacturing company has decided to leave the city, with the company’s owner saying he can’t trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn during the recent riots. The move will cost the city about 50 jobs,” the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports Tuesday.

The company’s president, Kris Wyrobek, says they’ve operated in Minneapolis for nearly four decades and that it pains him to leave, but the city is simply not prepared to handle any further unrest — and with the new push to disband and defund the MPD, the situation is only likely to worsen.

“They don’t care about my business,” he told the Star-Tribune. “They didn’t protect our people. We were all on our own.”

Part of the reason why Wyrobek has no problem picking up and leaving: rioters burned his building last week when anti-racism protests in Minneapolis spiraled out of control, leaving hundreds of businesses in ruins. Damage costs are estimated at nearly half a billion dollars and Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, is asking for a federal bailout.

“Wyrobek said the plant, which usually operates until 11 p.m., shut down about four hours early on the first night of the riots because he wanted to keep his workers out of harm’s way,” the Star-Tribune reports. “He said a production supervisor and a maintenance worker who live in the neighborhood became alarmed when a fire broke out at the $30 million Midtown Corner affordable housing apartment complex that was under construction next door.”

No surprise, Wyrobek’s 7-Sigma plant was left to burn.

Frey, the Star-Tribune reports, seemed confused by the departure and insisted that Minneapolis public service did everything it could to keep the damage under control.

“This was a Guard-sized crisis and demanded a Guard-sized response,” Frey told the paper. “And once we had the full presence of the National Guard — which by the way hasn’t been deployed since World War II — there was a significantly different result.”

7-Sigma is likely to be the first of many Minneapolis-based businesses to leave the city, as Hot Air points out. Beyond the devastation wrought by the anti-racism riots — damage that raged out of control for several days before city leaders felt confident enough to take action — Minneapolis is now bent on dismantling its existing law enforcement infrastructure.

The City Council president, who pressed the “defund” measure, was adamant about following through with her plan, as she told several media outlets Monday, adding that concerns about becoming the victim of crime were the result of “privilege.”

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