“The full force of goodness and righteousness”

Words of Governor Walz before last night’s action.

Protestors/rioters tried to cross the river from Minneapolis to St. Paul last night, but the St. Paul police held the bridges. Police and National Guard apparently kept most of the protestors on the move, splitting the large groups into smaller groups, and not allowing them to rejoin. They seemed eager to be taking offensive action finally, and not much concerned about niceties like media credentials—according to reporters, who reported about as much on this as on anything else.

There were a number of reports of cars without license plates, which continued into today, and while there were some reports of out-of-state plates on several police calls, most of the 150+ arrests made seem to have been of Minnesotans.

Shots were fired at various times, and there were reports of visible guns.  There may have been a campaign to flood 911 with fake calls; Minneapolis’s web site was under cyber attack last week.

People were defending their streets and businesses, in at least one case making a group of protesters
turn around and choose a different route, by brandishing baseball bats and clubs.

Two bodies were found in the last couple days, although the story that there have been no deaths so far is persisting.

Tonight there is curfew again, and a 5 pm closure of major highways.  There were protests at the Capitol this afternoon, and now the protesters are marching along the freeway toward Minneapolis. Other protests under way in Minneapolis, with two hours until curfew.

———————-

Update:  For some reason, they were unable to close Highway 35W on time.  Many protestors/rioters now on the 35W bridge—the one that replaced the bridge that collapsed into the river with people on it some years ago.  There’s a gas tanker on the bridge which they are attacking; it is reported to be empty, aside from the poor driver.

One thing I noticed last night is that a bridge could be a bit hard to get off of, if your opponents are at both ends of it. Hmm.