In one of a pair of tweets, President Trump blasted Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for having failed to maintain order following the death of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African-American man who died Monday after a Minneapolis police officer kept his knee on his neck for several minutes during an arrest, an incident caught on video that quickly went viral. Frey responded by trying to turn the criticism back on Trump and declaring that his city, sections of which have been engulfed in flame, is “strong as hell.”
When video of Floyd’s ultimately fatal arrest first went viral, Frey quickly made a statement condemning the actions of the officer seen kneeling on the suspect’s neck as having “failed in the most basic, human sense.” On Wednesday, Frey called for charges against the officer. As protests quickly gave way to rioting, Frey begged the rioters to embrace peaceful protests, decrying the violence and destruction of private and public property as “unacceptable.” As rioters converged on the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Police Precinct building on Thursday, Frey ordered it evacuated.
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