♪ >> rick: this is a fox news alert, i'm rick leventhal in los angeles. a curfew is now in effect in minneapolis following days of violent protests in response to the death of george floyd who died in police custody monday. if most people not observing and you police and protesters clashing there is the officers made some effort to clear the streets and fires are burning there tonight. if the pentagon has now put military police unnoticed and on the alert to head to minneapolis to help out the unrest in that major american city also spreading to other cities across the nation tonight including atlanta, new york, washington, d.c., denver, and here in los angeles. if there is a ten situation

unset the white house that we are showing you live or earlier this evening when the secret service and uniformed officers trying to keep the situation under control preventing demonstrators from crossing the street to the gates of the white house and keeping them in the park and some of the demonstrators throwing bricks and other objects at the officers and we saw images of at least one and we saw him they are treated for a wounded and suffered apparently by a objects thrown via demonstrators outside the white house. in atlanta, protesters said a police car on fire, struck officers with bottles and vandalize the headquarters of cnn. protests and tension also seen on the streets of new york city primarily in brooklyn, new york, outside of the parkway and you there where they played a basketball games when there are basketball games to be played in the nypd being forced to call him back but from surrounding

precincts after a couple vehicles were damaged and torched. these people on the street saying they are protesting the death of george floyd, a black man who'd died in handcuffs while in police custody and you can see floyd on the ground there under the knee of that officer, derek chauvin, who was arrested friday. four officers involved there were fired and derek chauvin who had his knee on his neck for 9 minutes has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of 46-year-old, george floyd. if the officer is convicted, he could face up to 12 years in prison. he did not stop the demonstrations from taking place tonight an end like i got pretty heated and that's where fox news correspondent jonathan serrie joins us now live. it jonathan, once the scene there now? >> hi, again, rick.

outside the cnn center where ours ago was grounds at zero and thousands of protests gathered outside the cnn center and also the centennial olympic park in the adjacent green space near the cnn center. you can see the police in riot gear fanning out as they enforce a wider and wider perimeter here in downtown atlanta. here, they had to diffuse the crowd with tear gas and becoming very destructive. they set fire to a vehicle outside cnn center and they broke glass, they vandalized and spray painted the walls of the exterior of the cnn center building. they fired fireworks into the assembled police officers and the police responded with tear gas and after seller rounds, were able to disperse the crowd and enforce the perimeter

wider and wider in downtown atlanta. there are still protesters in downtown atlanta but the water they disperse, the smaller the crowd word. we followed one group to the police on the four side street and there were probably maybe a little more than 100 protesters there and many of them sitting in the middle of the street hurling insults at police. a police maintaining on perimeter and then at one point, individual officers approached an individual protesters started talking to them explaining where they were coming from. there protesters expressing their grievances and they came to diffuse the situation. while there were some harsh words from the protesters initially, there was no violence, no destruction in that immediate part of downtown atlanta and then eventually the crowd dispersed and the police were able to move to other areas. but we have been seeing -- we've

seen a lot of looting, a lot of damage, a lot of storefronts shattered it and just kind of random. if businesses that didn't really seem to have to do -- anything to do with anything. having nothing to do with the fast food businesses, local businesses, glass windows shattered it. here in the streets, just seeing a lot of debris of some of the items that were thrown at the officers out here. but a much more peaceful situation than what we saw earlier in the day when we were seeing the crowd trying to provoke the officers and then the teargas which prompted the crowds to run and anyone who happened to be in the way of that cloudy got to experience the teargas. i was among those who got some of that teargas cloud and it felt like having pepper stuck in your throat, eyes stinging. but once the crowd disperses, it

goes away. for someone with a mild case of asthma, i'm impressed that i'm able to breathe well. >> rick: we appreciate that, jonathan, for sure. i'm sure that was an awful experience for you. i've seen the protesters in the past out there were some of the guys were wearing gas masks and preparing for the possibility of teargas. did you see demonstrators with gas masks and did they teargas have the desired effect? did it clear the street? >> i did have the desire effect and the crowds rapidly dispersed and this is just something some protesters it looked like they were trying to brave the crowd -- the cloud of tear gas, and it looked like one point i was going to brave the cloudy. no, i quickly went running for one of the parking ramps and it was just too intense in the

teargas was very effective in getting the crowd to disperse. but as far as the masks, yeah, i've been to some of the protests where you see them wearing actual military grade gas masks, the protesters. if i didn't see any of that but what you did see was some of this, the consumer grade covid-19 masks than many of us have been carrying around. my guesstimate would be maybe half or slightly more of the protesters were wearing face coverings and the others weren't bothering. at times, people wherein very, very tight corridors and obviously folks working at the cdc watching this i'm sure that they were getting very stressed watching this incident with the crowds. i anticipate that there's going to be more infection of covid-19 as a result of these protests. >> rick: it may be the least of the worries for many of the

cities across america that are dealing with massive unrest, fires, et cetera. it jonathan, we appreciate you being out there tonight and think you for your insight and solid reporting. it getting back to jason nichols, professor of african-american studies and we had to enter conversation early with jason last hour. one thing i wanted to ask him about was the group of anarchists and opportunists who are seizing on the demonstrations and a chance to go out and do the wrong thing, burn buildings, lewd buildings, start the fires and start the trouble and using the death of the man as an excuse to carry out the brazen acts of criminal and acts of anarchy. >> yeah, i mean, to me it's also frustrating and i think that they are enemies a lot of times and provocateurs.

they were at causing a lot of the trouble and a lot of the areas and i don't know where the provocateurs are coming from and some people are saying there anarchists, i've heard other conspiracies. but it's troubling and it's muddying the waters. but i think that there are many people who are engaging in a lot of these activities were just doing it out of frustration. and as i said, we've seen it so many times, we've seen it in blocks in detroit and l.a., and baltimore, and you know, being a baltimore native, you know, i felt that frustration. and i feel what's going on around the country right now. and as i said before, we really need to have a conversation and talk about and asking people so that we don't have the same conversation five years from now so that i'm not on your show five years from now having the

same frustrating conversation because people didn't want to talk about race and didn't talk about biases and police brutality and health care and all the things that are causing these deaths and causing destruction of property around the country. it's so frustrating because when we try to have these conversations, guess what, people call us race hustler. you're the race hustler if you don't have the conversation that will prevent this and actually do what needs to be done to prevent this and i'm hearing other people, i know some people think it's about one administration or the other. i heard the mayor of atlanta today, and the things that she was saying, she sounded like my mama. i understood what she was saying, but she was wrong too. she sang well, take your frustrations in the voting polls in november. if who exactly should the people

in minnesota have voted for? who is that person? was at the mayor, who was it that they were supposed to vote for? her city exploded. the black men was going back to mayor jackson. and yet, we still see these things because they are institutionalized. until we started changing and addressing the underlying issues, the institutional issues, because they have black mayors but i bet you that we went into southwest atlanta or we went into bankhead or we went to eastpoint atlanta and some of the working class black community and every black man or woman has a story about an encounter. an uncountable encounter, if not

violence. so if people see this kind of stuff and get triggered and this explosion. until we go to a real community policing and come up with real actionable items and implement them, we will actually gain the trust between police and the community. if we don't do that, we will see this every couple of years, and i know it's hurtful. it's painful. for me to see this. to see the black communities like the communities i come from that i see burned down around the country. and the reason for that is because i saw somebody who could have been me on the ground with a knee on their neck while they were having a medical emergency. >> rick: just an absolutely awful image and jason, i want to alert our viewers that roughly 17 minutes from now we are expecting a news conference with the governor of minnesota, tim

walz to address these ongoing demonstrations and protests and how his state will be handling that great if we do expect a live news conference of the governor of minnesota now roughly 17 minutes from now here on the fox news channel. i only have time, jason, for one more quick question with you and i would like to know in this environment, today's environment environment, what we're seeing now on the streets of america in the major cities. is it possible to have a demonstration without the violence? can a message be delivered to the people who need to hear right without burning buildings and damaging and destroying police vehicles and attacking officers on the street? can we have a peaceful protest that might actually wring about some kind of change and some kind of awareness? >> i think that's very possible. i think we actually have to come up with ways to actually address the issue and address the

problem. if we come up with real actionable items and that seems sincere, that's absolutely possible to have that conversation. >> rick: and we certainly hope to see it. >> i will say, i'm not going to be anti-trump, but he's not helping the situation. he's fanning the flames, this is a time where we need leadership at all levels, the governor, the mayor, the police chief, and of course the president of the united states. if i feel like a lot of them have failed them. >> rick: it we appreciate your insight, jason, we appreciate your insight, we got to move onto the next guest but thank you very much, jason nichols, professor vermette democratic and american studies at the university of maryland about the president did not start the fires those are people on the streets who started the fires who looted the buildings and i would like to ask now bernard's neighbor, retired 25 year veteran who joins us on the phone.

your thoughts of what you're seeing on minneapolis and other american cities now. >> unfortunately, rick, you remember planning for the 2008 republican convention in st. paul and one of the ongoing problems with the influx of insurgency of anarchists that were coming in from all of the country, they were staging material in the streets in st. paul and minneapolis that cause disruption including molotov cocktails were actual indictments around to that to start the arson fires. and the combative events. we sides in ferguson, missouri, where you had people who don't even live in missouri or near, and they come in to agitate before the critical social issues where we absolutely have to have an answer for our public to have trust and those that that are tasked with protecting our constitution.

making this the best democratic republic in human history. but, also, the erosion happens when people are set forth to use this as a reason to do what happen tonight which is unabated civil unrest and terror. >> i've seen it myself, too many times on the outside agitators s who have come to town specifically to cause mayhem like we are seeing now. and i'm wondering, as you watch these images in portland, oregon, where it appears police are firing tear gas and squaring off with the demonstrators, is there more that the officers should be doing and especially in minneapolis where the protesters took over the streets and a curfew apparently was not enforced although some people were taken into custody. if most of them were basically given free reign to do what they did to destroy so many of those neighborhoods tonight.

>> i think it will demonstrate there is continual mistake in the assumption by civic and state government to on occasion to think that they are going to let the steam out of this by allowing these type of activities to go unmitigated. always a complete failure. the other thing that i have not heard mentioned is the fact that police departments and law enforcement agencies and the public safety organizations are operated on the margin. they are not legions of police officers that come swarming into work a problem. they have just a minimal amount of officers on the shift to provide a modicum of public safety. if so the resources aren't really there because of that. >> rick: you know, i lived in new york cities for 25 years and they have the largest police department to the nation, bigger than many countries and standing armies. they have the bodies, they can flood the zone, they can put thousands of officers if

necessary into situations where there are crowds and diffuse things or at least protect businesses. when i'm hearing you say is a city like minneapolis may not have the kind of resources to do that. i know they brought in the national guard amount why not bring in more outside agencies, why not create the situation where they do have the bodies to protect the people, the buildings, and keep these people where causing mayhem off the street. >> i think the responses to: the exactly what's happening. but as far as that mobilization on that and a lot of people in the post-9/11 budgets, the lack of the grant funding the state and local law enforcement agencies, you don't have that type of capacity in the medium for small metropolitan areas. that something that has to be

rallied and there will als alwae resources that has to have a quick and response. >> rick: the pentagon has taken the rare step of deploying u.s. military police units to minneapolis and they prepared to deploy at several active duty military police units to help out on the ground there. but, again, the national guard on the ground nothing seemed to change. tomorrow brings a new day and tomorrow night, most likely, a new set of protests. what can they do tomorrow to stop this from happening tomorrow night and is there any chance that they will be able to do that? >> you know, i think they have to have a leadership change in the resources coming in because it's not a municipal decision as to what happened here. if i'm sure that the state is going to have to work and have a lot of resources, ultimately, in this time frame but they're going to have to make an operational plan decision and

this is not good to be tolerated. in other words, every person that loots, every person that's trying to start a fire, that's tossing the car, smashing windows, that there is the expectation of arrests, and everything that goes with it. to be very decisive, they have to do this or it's going to perpetuate. >> rick: it well, this is one of the weed and seed situations. we appreciate your time here tonight, sir, and it's just disturbing images keep coming in to the fox news channel from cities across america. ongoing protests and clashes with police, looting, fires, mayhem as demonstrations continue over the death of george floyd in minneapolis. we will have ongoing coverage including a live news conference with the governor of minneapolis -- i'm sorry, the governor of minnesota, and just a few minutes. ♪ not even our competitor's best battery

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♪ >> rick: in this fox news alert here from the studios in los angeles, word of the death of a demonstrator in detroit tonight. that is up a demonstrator in detroit, not at the hands of police, but gunshots fired froma suv into a crowd of protesters near the greektown entertainment district. if the victim was reportedly a 19-year-old man, no word on who the shooter may have been or the motive for that shooting as protests continue in cities across america including new york. let's go now to fox news correspondent alex hogan has the latest live from there. alex. >> rick, crowds gathered here in my hand and chanting things like black lives matter and the violence has to end and i can't

breathe. those of course are the final words that we heard george floyd say in the viral video. so even though the crowds started walking peacefully, things definitely changed as they made their way to brooklyn. we know that at least several dozen people have been arrested in new york and police even brought in a van so they can lonely people up into the van as they were arrested tonight. if the video of an officer kneeling on the unarmed black man as he continued to stop breathing and the pain and agony really translating to anger that we are seeing in protests not only just here but around the country and some of the protesters are saying that if you're not speaking up against this problem, your essentially part of the problem. we also heard from the mayor tonight. he was in them area of the breakout and urging people to not take their anger out on police who are just trying to do their job, but take their anger

out on elected officials and he went on to tweeted that we have a long night ahead of us here in brooklyn. if our sole focus is de-escalating the situation and getting people home safe. there will be a full review of what happened tonight and we don't see another night like this. at the anger and frustration grew and people circled around a police van. they threw fireworks underneath it, they threw a flame into the car and they spray-painted dates, broke the windows jumping on top of it and they also rode on it "dead cops" on the vehicle before it went up in flames. protesters eating in fights with police and throwing water bottles o at them and there will be more protests tomorrow. if returning to the quiet city that we have seen throughout the pandemic, but as i mentioned, moving forward, we will likely be seeing more protests in the future. rick. >> rick: all right, alex, glad

it's calm where you are and we will brace ourselves for what's coming tomorrow. i believe we have mike tobin now on the phone from minneapolis. micah, can you tell us what you experienced on your way out of the rough area where your position all night? >> yeah, it was pretty hairy as we started walking back, one think the looting certainly is widespread. the first made the walk i would, it didn't seem like it was extensive looting on the way out but as we got -- as we go deep into it we started coming back and i saw the liquor store was broken into, the chicago lake liquor and people running in and out of there and more fires going in the precinct fire going here. i lost count of the number fires that i saw here tonight read lots of looting the lost count of the number that i saw broken out and particularly we looked back along there.

so, it's widespread in the people from other surly out there. we encountered this crazy lady -- she wanted to know what's in her bags and it was a fight getting away from it and you start to struggle and he become interesting and people multiply so there is suddenly big crowd on us. and it was a good thing we started getting out when we died because the situation out there is it's only getting worse as the night goes on, rick. >> rick: it seems like it's spiraling nearly out of control and you mentioned earlier, the firefighters were not rolling trucks into put out the blazes started by the protesters because they feared for their safety. is that accurate? >> rick: at what i did see on the way back, we saw a complicatiocompany of thefiremen rolling out in the direction and i saw three or four fire trucks

heading the direction of the big fires that we saw at the wells fargo bank, at the rental center in the tobacco store that was burning. and the post office. we saw fire trucks going in the direction and they went with the guardsmen to provide them security so they could set up and start putting out the fire is because, anything that attracts attention in particular it stays for a while in the mob's going get on them and they will start throwing rocks in the bottles and whatever and he'll just melt on into total mayhem. so they've got the security so they can put the buildings out and get water on them. of >> rick: it's understandable the firefighters would be reluctant to go in and put out a place without that kind of protection from police were in this case, national guard soldiers. even in the situations many times, mike, it sounds like this one shook you. it sounds like the situation and

the scene in minneapolis was worse than most. >> were traveling with security but this is the first time i can remember i've had to retreat from a story that i was coveri covering. i've already said that the situation was no longer tenable and the biggest issue that we had we are on one side of the conflict and we need to get to the other side to get home. we had across that and everything was digressing throughout the evening. so the call was made that we had to make the crossing as fast as we could and not to delay. it's a good that we did because it's getting worse out there. just a note in several points that we heard gunfire and we are beating a hasty retreat so we could not stop and figure out what was going on but we could tell that gunfire was there and the exchange of gunfire or somebody shooting into the air, i can't. >> rick: we are glad you got out of there, you mention the looting and we have leading reports in numerous cities

including in portland where people are apparently looting stores there. you can look at some life pictures now, not you, mike, but are viewers conceived spray painting on storefronts and people carrying goods that they apparently have taken from stories that were smashed into as the opportunitie opportunisto grab what they can in this chaotic situation and it happened in minneapolis as well were by the way we're waiting on a news conference from the governor who is going to speak to this ongoing situation in the twin cities. it mike, you've been there for a couple days now and you've seen the protests and i'm wondering if you think that there is something that the police department could have done and should have done in coordination with the national guard and state police and others on the ground there to shut this down. i believe we may be going to the governor live in any second now. here he is.

>> those out there in the mission specific, they are employing. colonel langer is currently with it the precinct holding the ground with the state patrol. dps and the folks under dnr are out there in the local partners in minneapolis and st. paul and the joint powers agreements are assisting. the situation is incredibly dangerous mother situation is fluid, it's dynamic. i would first of all thank all minnesotans who chose to protect our cities, who chose to protect our neighbors and stay home, thank you for that. period of two other first responders who are out there, to the firefighters, national guard, two line crews, two utility workers were out there to keep us safe, i want to thank you for that. law enforcement is responding the best they can in this

situation. we will get you all the numbers that are out there. i want to say, first of all, i myself can fully understand the rage. i spoke this evening to george floyd's siblings quite extensively. i understand that rage, we talked about it, we understand what has to happen. of what's going on there right now is not that. the wanton destruction, and specifically of ethnic businesses that took generations to build, are being torn down. all those infrastructures of civil societies in the things that make our city great which lends me to believe that as we look at this, the disenfranchisement that went with what we witnessed with george's death is one thing, but the absolute chaos -- this is not grieving and this is not making a statement that we fully

acknowledge needs to be fixed. this is life-threatening, dangerous to the most well-qualified forces that are out there facing this. so i want to acknowledge that. i'm deeply concerned with the people -- you need to go home. you need to go home. the purpose of this and we are seeing it spread up across the country is making it more difficult to get to the point where we can deal with these issues. our neighbors are afraid, people are watching this across and they want to know what's happening. we promised you today and i want to thank mayor frey for the leadership today and i think the issue of coordination and communicating together, this is the largest civilian deployment in minnesota in history that we have out there today and quite candidly right now we don't have the numbers. we cannot arrest people we were try to hold ground because the sheer size dynamics and wanton violence that's coming out there, colonel langer spoke about this often of the season folks who also deployed overseas and seen this and now seeing

this year in our neighborhoods. we are talking about ways and the resources we have left but to put this in perspective, the force that we have out there now is about three times larger than the one in the '60s which is the largest during the race riots in the out there now and the capacity to be able to do all there right now arresting the folks that we can. but as you can see, their shots being fired back at her people. that there is arson taking place and putting many people at risk in the firefighters specifically and very open to target and minneapolis fire has been responding. i tell you all the citizens, the response time as fast as we want to get it and the responsibility as i said today for coronation lies with us. i will take responsibility for the underestimating the wanton destruction in the size of the crowd. if we have deployed a force that i think as we sat down together and talked about with if it had

been any other civilian police operation, but the terrifying thing is you hear people who have seen this and myself are looking at this, it resembled a mart of military operation at times now and ringleaders from moving place to place. i would ask all of us to again, go home to protect our assets, understanding that the priority of the mission today and the plan to do what it was to deployed assets that we have, working the coordination and beef up what we had to do very, very quickly and command control of those come up with a joint force together and first and foremost protect life followed by protecting property, followed by restoring order. in the issue as i said this time and time again, whether it's something that now seem so simple to do state and home orders about covid is to try to get the situation to protect all those things. but there's a compact that goes in civilized society that you have to have social buy-in. width of the elements that are

out there now, they are stopping semis by blocking roads and then rating what's in them. this is not about the george's death, this is not about inequities that were real, this is about chaos being caused and so my responsibility on this and i do want to thank the mayor, executing a plan is very difficult. i think the frustrations we all feel certainly should not be aimed at the mayor and he is performing admirably. he's here asking and calling hourly where can we move and so mayor frey, i want to thank you. same thing with mayor carter of executing together. if this is an operation that has never been done in minnesota. the scope of this has now reached a globally -- excuse me, across the nation. we are in contact today and having extensive conversation with the commissioner harrington with the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. it talking about assets in the way that we can help to assess the situation that they are seeing on the ground and to put those things into a plan to

operate today. if that plan is not changed and our folks are out there as we speak right now doing this. our intention is to the very same things to protect the lives of minnesotans, do try to protect as much poverty as we can and try to restore order on the streets. i have to do that in the way that protects those who are out there doing that, to ask them to go in a forward motion to try and get some of these people. they are well coordinated is, they will flank these groups, they will do everything possible to cause that destruction. with that being said, i'm going to have mayor frey come up and we'll have our folks talk about and we'll talk about the next steps because i want to be clear where about 72 hours into this and the mayor's quick action of evacuatinactivating the nationad protected as much as we could and i think right now as we think about this and far into this, it seems the most impossible two days ago from the acquisition that we did today and plenty tonight for what tomorrow is going to look like. of minutes would have to reap this and what you see tonight

will replicate tomorrow unless we have to change what were doing. we change this in today with the president among the numbers in the execution of the land and the quality of the first responders who are out there. yeah veterans of combat tours overseas, you have state patrols who are seasoned, local police and firefighters who've been doing this for decades and are the best at what they do. they are just not used to doing it we have wanton destruction and the challenge that we face in the challenge that the mayor faces, we have to do it with ensuring the safety of those people. ensuring that there are legitimate people who earlier want to try and express their grief. the folks were out there right now want nothing more than to entice into conflict. if enticed something that sets us off even further and entices our folks to get into a situation will be start to lose life. so that adds the complexity to it. if arrest simple as push them

and move them back, that would be one thing. if they cannot do that. so i want to reiterate that minnesotans deserve a plan to try to get this. you need to assess that with all the tools that we have with the experience that we seen in this. we are certainly in contact with our neighboring states and cooperations as well as the federal government and you think about the best way to do this. if the situation tomorrow will be increasingly more difficult because this has spread to other cities in a serious way which makes the challenge of civil order even that much more difficult. but i do want to just clarify to my friend and someone who's led in this and a mayor who should never be put in a position that he was paid into try and respond. there's a limited number of resources that in the city has in this fourth that's out there right now is simply overwhelming what we have on the ground. at this point, he becomes more of a hold what we have and do the best we can. i want to thank you, mayor frey, i want to thank you basically

being on for 72 hours and every minute picking up the phone and getting to and up to the situation. so, mayor. >> thank you, governor, and thank you for the command and control today and partnership. minneapolis, i know you are reeling. due to lack of sleep and heartbreak for seeing the events over the last couple of days. i'm reeling too. we as a city are so much more than this. we as a city can be so much better than this. there is no honor in burdening down your city. there is no pride in looting local businesses that have become institutions of the

neighborhood. these are institutions that people are counting on, especially during a time of pandemic. they are counting on grocery stores to get food from other counting on pharmacies to get medicine. there counting on their local bank to get cash. if you care about your community, you've got to put this to an end. it needs to stop. you're not getting back at the police officer that tragically killed george floyd. by leading a town. you're not getting back at anyone. if you have a friend or family member that is out right now, call them, tell them to come

home. it is not safe. it is not right. if we care about her city come out let's do right thing now. we are doing absolutely everything we can. our firefighters are around the city putting out fires as quickly as they possibly can. if our police are doing everything to secure corridors to make sure that the looting stops. to try to prevent these necessary precincts which are so essential to safety. right now, the chiefs are doing everything they possibly can. as i said in the beginning, i am reeling. and i know each and every one of you is too. let's do right by our city.

let's do right by our communities. and let's put ourselves in a position, five and ten years from now or we look back at this day and we recognize that this was the point where we decided to make a change. i know in my heart that we can do it. because i know in my heart that minneapolis is everything that we believe it to be. thank you. >> thank you, mayor. >> commissioner john, minnesota department of health and safety. yesterday, we put together a unified command structure and a unified command bringing together the minneapolis police department in st. paul at the

police don't like the department, minnesota state patrol, dnr, and men and women of the minnesota national guard. we created a plan that brought together one of the largest civil police forces that we've ever seen in the state of minnesota. if larger, then we have for the republican national convention. well in excess of 2500 officers total. though mike committed to the effort of keeping the peace. we have a very clear mission in the governor was crystal clear in the mayors have been crystal clear. that our mission was to be keeping the peace and to maintain order. and to stop lawless behavior. by 8:00 last night, we began to see that we were wanting to have

to operate on multiple fronts of criminal behavior. if we had reports from st. paul that they were actively engaged. it reports that we had individuals that were breaching the minnesota freeways around 35w, that we had crowds in excess of 2,000 and the lake street area, east of hiawatha. crowds of hundreds in the areas of nicolet street and crowds of thousands or more in downtown. we reassessed the assets that we had in the personnel that we had and redeployed to try to be as many of those as we could be at but we recognized that we simply did not even with the numbers that i'm talking about, have enough officers and personnel to meet all of those missions safely and successfully. we picked missions based on our

capacity in the missions focused on downtown, off of nicolet and focused on the fifth precinct area of nicolet and lake. we continued to hold our critical infrastructure around other places where we believe had good intel that were being targeted and would have been destroyed and we have continued to hold those places of critical infrastructure as we speak. of the nicollet and lake area, our forces were able to rally around that area and they were able to disperse the crowd and a neighborhood of about 50 arrests. we have a mobile force of an excess of 300 larger than the mobile force that we utilized last night to clear the hiawatha

and east lake street area. and they have been actively engaged, but the level of resistance that we have seen tonight has increased exponentially. we have had officers shot at, we have had what looks to be like improvised munitions that have been targeted towards the officers. we've had officers injured. and we are in continuing to push that crowd on east of hiawatha with the attempt to try and do what we did last night which was to move them off the streets and to restore order there. but we recognized that as we do that, continuing to hold the area at nicollet and lake and try to maintain order in

downtown that we will need far more officers and far more national guard resources than we currently have. we currently have created a request for the national guard to substantially increase the number of national guard officers that would be available. we have reassessed our strategy in terms of our ability to mobilize mobile forces that have been affected in moving against a armed and more entrenched group of protesters and what i would really operate and say more that they are entrenched group of rioter's. we had officers who had been injured and none seriously at this point. but we have not given up our efforts to try to clear the streets and we will not give up the efforts to clear the streets. we are committed to restoring order in minneapolis, helping

st. paul, maintain order. were getting ready for what we believe will be one of the largest crowds that we have ever heard and that we recognize that we will be at the center of a come out not just a statewide event, not just a national event, but what is now looking to be a international event tomorrow. in that same area that we're holding right now in the area around nicollet and lake. at this time, i ask john jensen and national guard to provide his comments. >> good morning, i'm general john jensen the active general of the national guard. i like to cover some efforts that were involved in and

currently in minneapolis. we are currently have escorted and are supporting three minnesota -- i'm sorry, minnis minneapolis fired apartment teams. so we continued our support to the minneapolis fire department that we began yesterday. we also have over 100 soldiers currently at nicollet mall between hotel and grant street. supporting traffic control points and in support of state highway patrol. this morning at approximately 12:30 i believe, in cooperation and with consultation of colonel matt langer, commander of the minnesota state patrol, the governor authorized the minnesota national guard to

increase our strength. the initial request was for 1,000 additional soldiers to support the department of health and safety in the state highway patrol. governor walz and i have looked at different ways that we're going to mobilize the force and currently what we are going to use our units that we normally report for normal training this weekend. my belief is that we will exceed the 1,000 mark as the governor mentioned this will be the largest deployment inside the state of minnesota in history. at the conclusion of tomorrow, i believe that we will have over 1700 soldiers in support of the department of public safety. the city of minneapolis and the city of st. paul. you may have seen or heard that this evening, the president

directed the pentagon to put units of the united states army on alert with a possible operation in minneapolis. while we were not consulted with as it relates to that, i do believe approved in move to provide other operation optionse governor chooses to use those resources. at this time, governor completes my comments. thank you. >> thank you. thank you, commissioner. the situation now is the movement goes and i think minnesotans who don't understand this of the structure that we have, some of this of course is classified about where minnesota soldiers are deployed overseas and on missions and that's a limited force in the national guard is what it is in states. we talk about calling up the national guard it's not like

pulling something off the shelf and it's there, this is a human being citizen children out there working across the state and they get called in and put theis in order. and they staff up and start understanding where the mission is. so it's not as easy and it might seem in the deployment levels are reaching deployment levels where we deployed overseas in support of operation enduring freedom and some of those types of operations. so the mission remains the same, to restore order, to protect the life and property to the best we can. if were in close coordination other than this move by the white house to do that and i agree with the general jensen as we spoke to president trump the other night i think it's prudent to have them ready for us to exhaust all resources that we need to. again, it was quite extensive only spent quite some time where the assets need to go and they

understand with the federal assets are into an ever widening situation when we are losing police precinct in brooklyn and some of the unrest spreading across the country. what i would say, minnesotans, once again, an unprecedented threat to our state and a tragedy that was the catalyst for this. it has morphed into something much different. the challenges of protecting people where wanton destruction is their goal, no regard to life or property and no sense of pride of who we are. that's with the folks are up against in any quite dangerous environment. i would once again think minnesotans who stayed home, thanks for looking out for one another. if our goal is to do everything that we can to start to restore order and working with our partners on this. as i said today, once this became a unified command starting last evening in the state of minnesota.

with that. >> second night in a row, minnesotans and americans are watching on television as fires burn, buildings are limited to, and people of minneapolis are in danger. they don't see the national guard and they don't see law enforcement and i know they're out there but people are not seeing them and they're not hearing from their leaders and it goes on for hours and hours and nobody knows what's going on. what can you tell me are people just missing, are we missing that there is more of them than us? >> the operation so much broader. where out there, i can assure you. they are in heated confrontations that are putting folks at risk. we are prioritizing those critical assets and i know the heartbreak that brings to people when the business that you fought your life or to try to get burns down. that seems like a pretty critical asset to you.

of protecting the federal reserve, were protecting those infrastructures downtown and were protecting power stations and things like that. but they're out there and as i said, this is the largest single deployment in the states history and this is certainly not something that slacks of this is the best trained in the country. if there were hardened and they've been out there very many times as far as national guard. of it is simply that broader. we have to prioritize, we have to triage, it's a horrible predicament and i can tell you this, i want every one of the fire spread out immediately and i wish it would not happen and return to use all the tools that we have great effect of the matter is on this, we ask people, we put a stay at home or at her an end give one about that. they are out there to cause as much damage as they can. our goal is to create a plan that stops at the best we can to assess and in this case ss and bring on those trips. >> folk seem to completely

ignore the curfew and they did not -- they just didn't give it a second thought. >> i don't if i'm surprised, just deeply disappointed. the one thing the assessments of the folks were truly grieving in the folks who have been pent up and wanted to get outside and there is the sense of some excitement about it when it wasn't there. our thought that those folks would not be casual observers on this. the number where now here and are continuing to grow here, it's pretty staggering. so i'm deeply disappointed. again, i'm not surprised, but it's pretty shocking to me the numbers that that didn't do anything. any time you do it one of these things, you have to be careful it's not a catalyst in and of itself i'm going to break the curfew because that gives me something. i talked about it this morning, the minute i put someone out there, these are folks that made critical threats that the fbi is on of targeting the national guard soldiers and wanted to find glory in killing

one of our citizen soldiers. that's the type of person that's out there right now. >> can you walk us through the timeline? what was the plan initially and then if you can address there were reports of the council member in minneapolis at one point saying the national guard has been pulled? can you explain from initial point what then happened? as most of you know, they'd be great to execute perfectly the folks you are doing exactly what you wanted but the minute you do it everything the minute you do it, everything changes. with the sheer numbers for got out there they have to make real-time movements. the idea that they are fully engaged the entire time, it is