Report: George Floyd Protests Worsened by City and Police Response

A new report conducted for the city of Minneapolis by the Chicago-based security risk firm Hillard Heintze suggests that the chaotic situation surrounding protests in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd was made worse by city’s response which included Mayor Jacob Frey’s disregard for emergency protocols and a police department whose officers failed to follow “consistent rules of engagement,” reports the Washington Post. The report’s authors, including several former law enforcement officials, said police on the front lines operated without clear guidance or supervision as they fired tear gas and rubber bullets at crowds, including peaceful protesters, fueling violence and looting across the city.

Some of the tactics used appeared to violate policy, based on the firm’s review of extensive body-camera footage from the scene, and many officers weren’t properly trained and had not been given a clear mission or directives from the city’s police chief or other senior leaders on how to deal with the increasingly volatile protests, despite having “well written” and “comprehensive” emergency operations plans in place. The reports accuses Frey of not ensuring the “appropriate implementation” of those emergency plans, saying that he and Medaria Arradondo, who was then the city’s police chief, “did not effectively” work with the city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to stand up a unified command and response center that could have improved coordination and taken the lead on requests for help from other law enforcement agencies across the state.