the killing of george floyd by police. >> as i talked to my friends, who have been in this movement for a very long time, who wake up in this movement every day, and i ask them what they're seeing, what they're feeling, what they're hearing, to a person, i hear them say we don't know these folks. >> meanwhile, donald trump and his attorney general had their own explanation, labeling the instigators as left wing and antifa groups. >> in many places it appears the violence is planned, organized and driven by anarchic and left extremist groups, far left extremist groups. >> well, as of this morning, the story has shifted yet again. state officials have since walked back their claims that most of those arrested were from out of state. the situation is so fluid, we're still not sure who the violent protesters were or where they came from, but the idea that people would use the grief and justifiable rage that millions of people all over the country feel to wreak havoc on the very communities that are suffering, not just from excessive police brutality, but also under the pandemic crisis, and then blend into those protests, using them as the governor said as human shields, well, that may be the sickest development yet. vice news reports that far right extremists are showing up, armed, to the protests, while others are egging on the violence from behind their computers, with the goal of sparking a race war. and then the story last night changed yet again. when all over the country, protests gained even more momentum, and numerous firstnd accounts attributed the escalation not to outside provocateurs but the police caught on video, in multiple instances, using excessive force, the very outrage that so many are protesting about right now. as an example, here's a video of the nypd plowing a truck into a group of protesters in brooklyn after protesters threw things at police vehicles. and in los angeles, the lapd began shooting rubber bullets, even though no protesters were even close to them. and here is my colleague msnbc anchor ali velshi actually being shot at in minneapolis last night with rubber bullets. >> nobody was doing anything. they pulled in, they opened fire, look at them, they're aiming their fire now, they're working towards us. they're working -- get back. get back, get back, get back. you're hit, you're hit. he's hit. step back. watch it, guys. we got gas here. back up, back up, back up, back up. all right, they're now moving toward us. they're now moving toward us. there was -- >> they're shooting at us. >> they're shooting, guys, put your helmets on. >> joining me now is mayor melvin carter of st. paul, minnesota. live from minneapolis, ali velshi, host of "velshi" here on msnbc. i want to start with that question, about the activities of police. i want to start with ali, can you clarify for us what happened so that the mayor can get a chance to weigh in on it? >> so what happened is that at 8:00 our time, 9:00 eastern, that was when the curfew kicked in. moments before that, everybody who was at the entirely peaceful protest at the 5th precinct in minneapolis got up, they were sitting in many cases, that was their preparation for the possibility of mass arrests, something changed, they decided to get up and go on a march. we marched with them for an hour or to get the motivations of what was going on, see what was happening. to call it 100% peaceful would be to understate it. it was just a march. we were two thirds back to the back of the line. at some juncture, i noticed in front of us police cars flew into the intersection, splitting the group in half, maybe two-thirds went forward, we were in the back third, we were probably toward the back of that. and immediately started deploying tear gas and throwing projecti projectile, shooting projectiles. there was no -- there was a lot of space between us. no one was close to them and we were backing up the whole time and they kept shooting. and in the end i got a rubber bullet in my knee, but there was a lot of tear gas, i have been carrying that tear gas mask around the whole time, i didn't have a chance to put it on, it came out so fast. there was no provocation to that. for a police force in the city that spent the last three nights trying very hard to not get involved in provocations with the protesters, they completely failed at that last night. where they succeeded was in getting the crowd to disperse. they did do that and invoked the curfew last night. there was no provocation for that action that we saw last night. >> and you were in minneapolis, right, ali? >> that is correct. >> okay. i want to make sure we're clear that mayor melvin, melvin carter, you are from st. paul. we're not going to ask you to take responsibility for what happened in minneapolis, but i wonder if broadly, because we're seeing this all over the country, this really aggressive use of force including against journalists, we have a whole bunch of video of it, not just in minneapolis, but all over the country, do you believe that given the severity of what you described and other officials described yesterday about infiltration of the protests, people setting fires, people sparking violence, do you think there was an overreaction by police to that last night? >> good morning, joy. thank you very much for having me on. i really appreciate that. you know, i ran for mayor as maybe one of relatively few elected officials in the nation who know what it feels like to be pulled over for driving while black. i grew up in sort of a two-sided existence in a retired police officer, i always tell folks, i met a whole lot of his work colleagues once i turned 16 and started driving around our community. the videos that you just showed, and certainly the video, the gruesome video of george floyd's murder last week show a culture of abuse, violence, and of escalation that has been a part of police culture for a very long time before we started seeing cell phone videos about this, because my father and grandfather and aunts and uncles can tell us about these types of stories dating back generations. and so, yes, i think there is a challenge in that we have acult have accepted for generations, i also know there are people in our community right now whose actions over these past week have not been driven by a deep and genuine love for our community when they're burning and looting black-owned barbershops and immigrant-owned restaurants. i know that is not driven by love for our community. i think both are true at the same time. and we have to change both of those things simultaneously. >> and let me ask you about that part of it, because the question of yesterday -- yesterday we came into this show expecting to did a completely different show than we wound up doing based on the press conference that yourself and other state officials did, it changed everything that we were talking about yesterday. yesterday you stated that the people who were arrested, at first yourself and other officials indicated all, but then that was reviced edrevise most people arrested in the night before's demonstrations were from out of state. is that the case. >> i think we have seen an enormous number of folks and i want to be pa irtient before we speak on exact numbers. i the initial reports i got turned out to be inaccurate. what is absolutely clear, though, is that a number of folks, wherever they're coming from, are coming from outside of our community. and, you know, to the point you made earlier, our focus this week ought to be on how wrong it is that george floyd was killed, particularly in the way that he was killed, how wrong it is that his name exists in a long and growing list of unarmed african-american men who have been killed by police. we ought to be able to focus our conversation on the fact that not just one but all four of the officers responsible for his death must be held accountable in our justice system, and we ought to be focused conversation on the fact that we have deep soul searching work to do as a nation to ensure that we can stop these cycles from happening over and over and over again. until we have some ability to be clear and confident that when something is disgusting as george floyd's killing happens and when it is frankly so well documented that someone will be held accountable for it. this level of anger, this level of rage will undoubtedly continue in our community. so i say that just to say that i'm -- go ahead. >> no, no, go on. >> i just say that to say that i'm as disgusted as you and mayors and community members and the legitimate protesters around the country who are frustrated that those who are seeking to burn our communities and tear down the community institutions that our community members have built up over decades and generations are drowning out the voice of those legitimate protesters who really have something to say that we must hear as a nation about where we are and where we have to go. >> and i think that is absolutely true. and i think that's the reason it is so jarring that people woule on that legitimate rage. i have to ask you very quickly, it also is important who those people are, right? so do you have any evidence at this time that it is antifa-type groups that were -- that were doing the violence in the communities in minnesota? >> you know, like i said, i don't know who it is, other than the fact that i know who it is not. it is not the people i grew up with in our community. it is not the folks who are on the front lines of justice for philando, on front lines of our black lives matter movement, and i think one of the points you made, joy that is really important is that the anger and rage is understandable. it is legitimate. and in some ways it is the only human response to the video that we saw and the videos that we have seen over the past decade that are just disgusting. so as we talk to our community members today, i'm calling for peace, but i'm not calling for patience. i'm not asking people to sit back and patiently wait, while we slowly and incrementally slow the bloody tide of unarmed black men who die at the hands of law enforcement. the energy that we have seen consume our country right now is a fire that could either destroy us or that could bring us together in a way that we have never been before. we're asking our young people to stay impatient, to stay driven, to stay passionate, and focus that energy not on destroying our community institutions and local businesses, but on destroying the policing contracts, the laws, the legal precedents and all those other forces that make it so difficult for us to hold officers accountable for the taking of black lives. >> and is there going to be a more restrained attitude by police toward legitimate protesters, because that is as disturbing as the idea of white nationalists going online and saying, hey, you should go to st. paul, or go to minneapolis and wreak mayhem, if police are also being violent, that is also -- it is a first amendment problem, and increases the policing problem. so is there going to be a mandate from state officials, city officials like yourself, to police to behave differently? >> there has to be. i'll tell you that in st. paul we have that mandate, we had it for quite a long time. our current chief has worked very closely with me. we revised our use of force policies, i always hear him talk to our officers in our community about the bank of trust that we have with community and the fact that in order to make any withdraws at all, you have to make years of deposits into that bank. our chief asks folks were your actions reasonable, necessary, and done with respect? our two missions this week has been to, one, protect the rights, to peacefully protest for those who just want to scream from the top of their lungs that george floyd should be alive, that the officers must be held accountable that we have to do the work to stop this from happening over and over and over again. we're working hard to protect their rights to peacefully protest and not be those videos that you see of officers escalating the situation and we're working hard to say we won't accept folks burning and willfully destroying our neighborhoods, our african-american neighborhoods, our low income communities of color as you pointed out very rightly, those same neighborhoods that are in crisis because of covid-19, that are in crisis because of an economic crisis, that are in trauma because of the video and had been retraumatized and revictimized this week by this crazy activity that we have seen play out in minnesota and across the nation. and so our goal is to say, we won't accept the killing of black men, and we won't accept the destruction of our neighborhoods and those two things are not opposing goals, they're actually the exact same thing. >> all right, if you can hold on for the hour, i'll try to keep you as long as i can, i'll bring in frank figliuzzi, national security analyst for msnbc. and he also is a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi. i want to point you toward what the mayor said and what he did not say. so, frank, yesterday the question is who is revictimizing those communities? and you had two different narratives that came out. you had one narrative from the state of minnesota that was very specific and was unanimous that people online, white nationalist groups online were organizing as well as potentially organized criminals to come in and insert themselves into these protests, use the protesters as human shields, that was the exact phrase used in order to wreak mayhem on the black community. then you had william barr, donald trump's attorney general, coming in and insert a completely different narrative that any of those minnesota officials had said. which was that it was anti-fascist groups that was doing it. that's a contradictory message and it needs to be cleared up. what can you tell us about it, frank, or what would you define from what you heard? >> i think this needs a lot more emphasis, joy. i'm glad you are talking about it. incomplete truth is really no truth at all. so what we saw yesterday from the attorney general and his press conference was selective use of intelligence, by that, i mean he knows very well what the fbi knows. which is that there is a broad spectrum of extremist groups inserting themselves into these protests. i personally have talked with law enforcement sources on a national level, they have confirmed that there is right wing and left wing groups and there are dangerous people amassing and organizing to insert themselves throughout the country in this. it is an exploitation of a tragedy that could turn into a greater tragedy. and i think we need to actually understand the law enforcement shift that you spoke about at the top of the show, look, armed with that intelligence, the police made a strategic decision that since we cannot tolerate the kind of organized violence that might be coming our way, we're going to take back our streets. we saw an aggressive approach and unfortunately it played out even toward peaceful protesters, which the police have a challenge here. they can't differentiate, if they have been told we're not letting anybody down this block, they can't start asking people, hey, are you a dangerous militia member, are you left, are you right? they needed to take care of business. i have to tell you, the shift toward more aggressive use of rubber bullets and indiscriminate shooting, even toward media, is disturbing because i think it is coming from a sense of someone's got their back, if they do this. and this gets us right back to washington, d.c. and the attorney general, and the president, who really still has not come out and said i want peace and calm, i call for order and to restore peace to the streets. so i am concerned about this enough to say we should be rooting for the police to get this right, because the alternative is for massive national guard presence throughout our country that feeds right into the trump narrative here. i know this may sound counterintuitive to a lot of your viewers, we need the police to get this right because the option is not better than what we saw last night. >> i think that's important. glad you pointed that out. i have more guests to bring in. i want to first thank mayor melvin carter. we did lose his feed. we were not able to hold on to him. thank you very much. profound words from melvin carter. do we still have ali velshi? is he still there? >> yeah, i'm here. >> quickly, we have more guests to bring in. i want to quickly ask you, you spent the entire day and evening out there marching with protesters. were you able to define or did you talk to people that seemed to you to be not interested in george floyd but interested in some other agenda? did you see that? do you have any reporting on that at all? >> i spoke to a lot of people. and there were a lot of people who had arguably a broader social justice agenda. so they -- i wouldn't call them people who were capitalizing on a protest, they were sort of seeing george floyd as an example of a lack of social justice. so there were people who were talking about economic rights and greater social justice. i didn't see anybody who looked like a provocateur in the groups. and in particular, look, three nights ago i was right here. two nights ago i was right here. the police moved in to arrest people who were looting or setting fire to buildings. that would have been something that was at least subject to debate. that was not what was happening at all yesterday and just to be clear, this is a part of things we didn't see clearly on the video, we weren't able to roll, we had backed up, we were trying to get out of it, we got blocked again by a new route of police and national guard, we needed to get out, so we put our hands up and said that we were media, walk toward them. we were still several hundred feet from them. we yelled, we're media, they responded, we don't care. and they opened fire a second time. and we had to retreat from that line again. so i hear frank figliuzzi's point. what happened last night was indisciplined. i don't know whether they knew -- my camera, i wish i could show you, miguel, he's tall and he's got a camera. they knew we were media. i'm in front of him with a stick mic. even if you assume they didn't know the first time they shot at us, the second time they did. we're not a radical group that came in there. so i think there was indiscipline behavior by the police and the national guard, separate and apart from whether there were provocateurs in the group. >> yeah. i think this was important to point out. i want to keep -- i want to bring in representative ayanna pressley of massachusetts and ilhan omar of minnesota, also the author of "this is what america looks like." i want to go, first, to representative omar, because this is your community. i want to start on that piece. the protests have a legitimate cause, the killing of george floyd is -- i don't think anyone can possibly defend the activity, the actions, right? there still have been three men who have not been arrested, three former police officers. but the actions of police yesterday in your view, do you believe they were excessive? the way that protesters were treated, journalists were treated, just people who were marching or who were out were treated? >> yes, i mean, i really do believe what many of the people in our community have reported, including your own reporters, who covered what took place last night. we have seen there be aggressive action against journalists, against the protesters who were out, against people who were sitting in front of their porches and that kind of aggression truly does beget more aggression. what we need right now is for there to be real understanding of the kind of pain and hurt that people are in. and to know that there are people in our communities who are exploiting our pain. and it is not incumbent on the protesters, people who are participating in the unrest, people who are actively seeking not just only justice for george floyd, but also just within our justice system. people who are looking at the kind of social and economic neglect that have existed and contribute it to the kind of brutality that our communities are feeling. of course we have been under siege the last couple of nights, people are setting fires to businesses, we worked so hard to build. but we also feel under siege when we see the kind of militarized police that arrived in our communities, when we are seeing the national guard coming in, with tanks, there is just so much hurt in our communities and there has to be truly something between mass force, massive force and aggression that will brutalize and terrorize our communities, and having people set fires to buildings that will continue to endanger the lives of our communities. >> yeah, indeed, congressman pressley, the two things need to happen is that there is a conversation that is being had about policing broadly, nationally, this isn't something that just happens in minneapolis, it is around the country. we have cases in georgia and everywhere. is there -- is there momentum based on the unrest that we're seeing in this -- the legitimate unrest we're seeing around the country toward a national solution for police reform? because obviously it is not just about the treatment of individual people who are under arrest, but now the treatment of -- people that are marching, people that are exercising their first amendment rights. is there a conversation that has begun about national police reform? >> absolutely, joy. you know, i find these days especially revisiting baldwin a great deal. he reminded us that not everything is -- nothing can be changed until it is faced. the congressional black caucuses often referred to as the conscience of the congress. in this moment, i think the congress must act as the conscience for our nation, which is why myself and representative omar have introduced a resolution denouncing police brutality, racial profiling and excessive force. congressional intent is powerful. we have used congressional resolutions in the past to assert and to affirm a values frame when it comes to foreign policy, and we must do the same now in this moment when it comes to racial justice. by denouncing police brutality, racial profiling and excessive force. and just to give this historical context, joy, the last time a resolution was introduced in the house was by representative danny davis, in the 106th congress, that was in 1999-2000. i can't begin to proximate how many black lives we have been robbed of from 1999 to 2020. that resolution never made it to the floor. it is long overdue and past time that a resolution like this is moved to the floor and a vote is taken. because congressional intent is powerful. and it lays the ground work for the collective action that we can take as a body, on other legislative pursuits. >> and i'll ask both representatives, should funding, because there is funding that the federal government does contribute to police forces, come into play, and senator kamala harris, i interviewed her the other night, she said that it should be mandated that outside entities investigate police abuse, that it shouldn't be left to local prosecutors because the two work together, they're partners. and i'll start with you, congresswoman pressley, should federal funding be hinged upon police reforming their behavior toward suspects and toward the public? >> this is exactly what i've introduced the resolution and broader reforms to address the systemic injustices writ large. systemic injustice requires systemic solutions. ultimately we have to lead, we have to be the pace setters in this, and then the states and municipalities will follow. i do certainly agree that is one thing that we should be considering and there are many other pieces of legislation that get at that, that are in the queue, in this moment, this congress must act, this resolution needs to come to the floor and we need to take a vote to reassert and to affirm as a value our commitment to racial justice and denouncing police brutality. the pain of black folks has been delegitimized for so long, and this is the opportunity. >> yeah. and, you know, congresswoman omar, you come to this country as an immigrant, i think about what police forces look like around the world, when the americans look at police forces and other countries that we, you know, consider sending monitors to for their elections, et cetera, you know, and then you look at our police force, acting against american citizens, and you don't see as much difference as you want to see, put it that way. talk a little bit about the need for the united states to live up to, you know, the values that we're putting forward, when you see police behaving in this way, it doesn't look like we are. >> yeah, thank you, joy. i just wanted to make sure we understood that budgeting and resource allocation is a way that we also make a statement about our values. so when we're talking about policing, it is in same process that we need to engage in the way that we engage with defense funding. we have to try to make sure that the resources that we are allocating are not resources that we are taking away that could go to leveling social and economic inequalities. we also, i think, really need to uplift the thought that senator harris had in having an outside agency investigate, which is why i'm introducing legislation on that in the next couple of days. truly it has been heart breaking and disappointing to see the president of the united states say that we have aggressive dogs and weapons that could be unleashed on citizens because every single time we see that happen in other parts of the world, we condemn it. we talk about how that is a violation of human rights, we talk about how that is a violation in the ways in which heads of state are supposed to interact with their citizens, we talk about how important it is for us to allow for defense to take place in democracies and that's the bedrock of what it means to live in a democratic society. so we now find ourselves as a country that is working really hard to crush dissent, that is doing everything that they can to try to make sure people don't have the ability to say, this is not working for me, and enough is enough and we need actual change to take place. because we're not only talking about getting rid of police brutality, we're talking about reimagining what policing looks like in our communities, we're looking at reforming our criminal justice system, we're looking at getting rid of the social and economic neglect. and none of those things are going to happen by telling people to calm down and go home because we need to have progress. >> i apologize deeply, congresswoman, the points you're making are so important. i must go to the press conference that is being held right now by the governor of minnesota, governor walz. here he is. >> -- it extended through the week of righrightous anger bein discussed by community leaders and all people of conscience and continued to deteriorate into civil unrest and eventually violence and rioting. this morning in minnesota, the sun came up as it does this time of year, bright, trees are budded out, flowers are out, promise of summer after a long winter. i want to say thank you to all of the people of minnesota who protected their neighbors, who took an unprecedented step last night of making sure it created the space that an unprecedented force of our neighbors and our public servants were able to come together, execute the most complex public safety operation in state's history. they did so in a professional manner. they did so without a single loss of life and minimal property damage. i am grateful to those folks out there. i'm grateful for their protection of minnesota. i want to make note once again that the operational plan and the decision to operate falls squarely with me and when the order to do so, the actions that happen after that are my responsibility. i want to once again extend my deepest apologies for -- to the journalists who were once again in the middle of this situation, were inadvertently but nevertheless detained. to them personally and to the news organizations and to journalists everywhere, it is unacceptable. i said it happened the other day when i failed you, i have to do better. i take full responsibility for that. and won't equivocate, in matter how difficult the environment is, i would just ask folks to know that in restoring public order, and adhering to democratic principles and having a history of governor of welcoming that openness, it is certainly not our intention, nor is it helpful to restoring public order to have that happen. so you can rest assured we will look back again at what happened, try and make those changes. so i ask you again that we will continue to dialogue with the media, it is critically important we do that, it is critically important that i am able to maintain or restore their trust in the necessity of them being out there to tell the story. yesterday was a day filled with tension. it was a day unlike any other us in minnesota had seen. the raw emotions were on display and as i said yesterday, the beautiful expression of solidarity and community that we saw play out by peaceful protesters, by that beautiful tapestry that is minnesota, indigenous dancers, leading in the middle, while the crowd kneeled around in reverence, in making sure that justice was served. i gathered yesterday with a group of leaders, elected leaders, clergy, moral leaders, led with lieutenant governor flanagan, senators klobuchar and smith and an array of leaders. if any of you got the opportunity to hear some of those remarks, i said for first time in quite some time a weight felt off my heart and was soaring up what minnesota could be. and i -- we were there together for dual purpose, the first was to send a message to stay home last night, stay off the streets, to allow us to execute this, so we wouldn't have a loss of life and we could row store order. it is very clear that was not the primary message. that message was a means to an end. each and every one of them did and with the gift they have given us is that sun came up this morning to open up the space for the real conversation. a real understanding that george floyd was dead and the conditions here in minnesota contributed to that. and we needed to deal with that. that space was created by last night's action to have us deal with the systemic issues that we saw exploding across the country. before i was an elected office i was -- i'm a public schoolteacher by trade. i spent 20 years doing that. one of the things i was most proud of and i think as minnesotans, many of you across the world may be getting your first and -- first look at who we are and that's unfortunate, but it is real. and we'll take that -- that look. but one thing that the public schools i'm proud of, our public schools rank at or near the top. we're a state that extends from a the canadian border, we have lakes, so clear and pristine, they're 40 foot deep and you see the bottom and drink from them. we have iron ore mining that is -- the steel was used to build this country. we're top agriculture producer, we're home to a higher concentration of fortune 500 countries and we're home to the mayo clinic. we're innovate. we're passionate people. and, again, back to that statistic, as governor i like to talk about this and the things we say, we don't just rank near the top on educational attainment, we rank near the top on personal incomes, home ownership, life expectancies, things that make this -- and one that came out a while back, we rank second in a survey of the 50 states, second in happiness, behind hawaii. if you take a deeper look and peel it back, which this week is peeled back, all of those statistics are true if you're white. if you're not, we rank near the bottom. and with what this week has shown all of us is, those to things can't operate at the same place. you not continue to say you're a great place to live if your neighbor because of the color of their skin doesn't have that same opportunity. and that will man itself in things that are the small hidden racisms, it will manifest itself in a child of color not getting the same opportunities or a black community not being able to acquire wealth through home ownership because of lending practices. and as we all said last week, the ultimate end of that type of behavior is the ability to believe you can murder a black man in public and it is an unusual thing that murder charges were brought days later. so what i would like to say, and, again, i want to thank everyone who participated in our ability it restore trust to our streets. it was incredibly complex, incredibly difficult. but that simply gets us back to a place we were before, and that place is not good enough. that place is not one that will get us the solutions. so i'm going to left details of the operation and i will be, of course, answering questions when we're done to those commanders on the ground, who executed this, but it does fall to myself, other elected leaders, community leaders and others that if we do not get to that systemic problem, eventually this will get us back to a point that led to our communities on fire, our security and safety in question, and searching for who we are. so i could not be more proud of who we are as a state. i could not love this state more. and in doing so, that tough love means things have to change. we have got to figure out how to make sure that justice is served. and the groups of people that ask for this, the groups of people that were part of that message with lieutenant governor flanagan leading it in her elegant words as an indigenous woman, of watching representative omar on the streets begging people to come home and the understanding of the call last night, how big this was, from jay-z, not international performer, but dad, stressing to me that justice needs to be served and that as he's listening and hearing it, this is a place that wants to do it. this is a place that does it. but we have to follow through. so with that, i just -- i'm going to transition here to -- again, of the chaos of this week, of tension and frayed nerves, two people i'm grateful that have been able to weather an emotional roller coaster with all of us that is unprecedented, who i leaned to do be candid and to be able to be in a room to ask and question where things were going, are the mayors of our great cities. two young leaders with vision, two young leaders who have been talking about that systemic issue since they were elected, their platforms to make these changes, and i'm just proud of the way that they have conducted themselves in this with mayor carter from st. paul and now mayor frey from the great city of minneapolis. mayor? >> governor mentioned just a couple of seconds ago this concept of who we are, and in talking about who we are, and in seeing who we are, it is important to acknowledge both the positives as well as the negatives. for those of you that are seeing minneapolis for the first time, you saw us at five minutes of our worst. followed by a week of great difficulty. however, i also want you to see some of the positives. and last night was sandwiched between a beautiful rally of thousands of people from our native community, all rallying around a common cause, which is each other, which was diversity, which was everything that we hold dear. it was safe. it was peaceful. it was joyous. there was singing. there was dancing. that is also who we are. on the other side of that sandwich was the events that we're now seeing this morning, which people coming out of their homes, walking to their businesses, picking up debris, pulling out a broom, and showing that even with the grave difficulty we had over the week, even with the whole world has seen us at our worst, we can still be at our best. i think it is also right to acknowledge first that no mayor could have ever imagined the scenes that played out yesterday on our streets. or yesterday's activity would ever be considered somehow to be more stable than the days that had proceeded. yesterday the overarching mission was preservation of life, preservation of property, and restoration of order. to all our neighbors who stayed home and gave our first responders the opportunity to succeed, and i do mean it, they would not have had the opportunity to have any form of success without you staying at home, every day since monday may 25th, when an officer murdered george floyd has renewed a collective trauma in our city, and in our nation. for our black community, for our young people, for everyone that is hurting tonight, we are going to keep working. we're going to keep working to strive to make sure that the twin cities can be better. we know that there is a lot of work ahead, we know that there is a whole long way to go, and i'll just talk briefly about the events of last night which were obviously difficult to watch. but the restoration of order in some form was important. importantly we had no significant fires last night. as you may have seen, just after around 8:30 there were 10 fast strike teams, ten mobile force units with 100 each, and they were charged with moving people away from the 5th precinct followed by making arrests and there were 25 arrests that were made at the 5th precinct and i'll let the following speakers talk more about this. we got a lot of work to do ahead. we got a whole lot of work to do ahead. what happened to george floyd is indelibly etched into the soul of minneapolis and the action of one and inaction of three officers have forever changed our city. so we must become a better city. we must become a more just city. that is a task ahead of us today, that is the task ahead of us tomorrow, and into the future. thank you. >> thank you, mayor. >> yesterday we asked a big thing of our residents. we asked you to stay home. we asked you to clear the streets, to give our police officers and law enforcement professionals the opportunity to reclaim a sense of peace, a sense of calm, a sense of order in our community. at the heart of that request was an invitation. it was an invitation for us to take the anger, to take the grief, to take the trauma and even the rage that we all experienced over the past week. and decide how we would channel it. we can either channel this energy towards destroying our own communities, towards burning and looting our barbershops, our restaurants, our family-owned businesses, the lives and livelihoods that have gone into all of those institutions, or we can take this energy and we can channel it towards building a better future. i share the governor and mayor frey's sentiments of gratitude and extreme appreciation for those of you who honored that curfew, who stayed home, and gave our law enforcement professionals an opportunity to work. we know that right now is a moment of deep soul searching for our community, and for our nation. right now we ought to be focused on the fact that george floyd should still be alive today. we ought to be focused on the fact that when someone takes one of our lives in such dramatic and gruesome fashion, and especially when it is as well documented as george floyd's murder was, that we ought to have some ability to be confident, to be sure, that the people responsible not just one, but the four people responsible for his death, in a democracy as great as ours, that the four people responsible for his death will, of course, be held to account. we have in our community -- we had a lot of conversations about whether these are insiders or outsiders or whether they're from in town or out of town, the one thing that is absolutely clear to me is those folks who would seek to act in a way that during a pandemic would deprive our senior citizens of the local pharmacy they need to go to do get their life saving medicine, who in the midst of a food shortage would deprive our families of the grocery stores they need go to do feed their children, who would deprive in the middle of one of the greatest economic crises in our country's history our workers from the opportunity to go to work and to earn a living and to build -- and to go and participate in our economy, the one thank that ing that is clea those folks are not griffin, those actions are not driven by a sense of deep drive for the betterment of our community. i also want to acknowledge as i have before that that doesn't mean there is not real rage. that doesn't mean there is not real anger. and that doesn't mean that our residents are happy with what happened. we're not. i don't know a single police officer. i don't know a single ceo. i don't know a single lawyer, accountant or neighbor, community activist, who is happy with what happens, who is accepting what happened. george floyd's killing is unacceptable. and it is disturbing by itself. in combination with all of the other people, african-american people, african-american men, who have lost their lives unarmed, unaggressive. not just over the past decade, as camera phones have become the norm, but over the past decades and generations and centuries in our country. that anger is real. and i share it with you. so, today we're asking our community for peace. but i want to be very clear. we are not asking you for patience and we are not asking you for passivism. this is not a time for either of those things. we are not asking you, i am not asking you to sit to the side and patiently wait while we slowly and incrementally stem the bloody tide of african-american men killed by law enforcement. we're asking you to take that energy, that energy, which has consumed our country, that energy which is a nuclear energy that could either destroy us or it could bring us together and build us up in a way we have never been together before as a country. we're asking you to take that energy and use it not to destroy our neighborhoods, but to destroy the historic culture, to destroy the systemic racism, to destroy in specific where this is concerned, the laws, the legal precedence, the police union contracts, all of the things that make it so difficult to hold someone accountable when a life like george floyd's is so wrongfully taken. if i had one thing, governor, that could stop all of this, that could help ease all of the anger that we felt, it would be something in our history, some historic pattern or fact or trend, that could make us feel confident and secure, that the officers involved will be held accountable, that we as a nation are using this as a pivot point, to chart a new course for our country. sadly, we don't have the historical fact or the historical trend to show that. but the energy that we've seen this week, the passion that we've seen this week, the dedication for a better country and a better future and a better state and a better city that we've seen this week, is that energy, is that tool. so, we're asking you to channel that energy in a way that builds us, in a way that makes us better, in a way that brings us together. and to every single person who's frustrated, who's sad, who's angry, who's devastated, who wants the world to know this can never happen again, i say that we're with you. i thank our law enforcement professionals for serving us so valiantly, our firefighters for serving us to valiantly over the course of a devastating week. working in challenging conditions, sometimes with bottles, sometimes with rocks hurled at them. i know that they stand as a part of -- they have to stand as a part of this work with us as we build this stronger pact, this stronger social exact and a better future. thank you. >> thank you, mr. mayor. >> thank you. >> i'm john harrington, commissioner department of safety. we set up for a new operational approach yesterday. we recognize that the group of rioters who had attacked the city of minneapolis and attacked the city of st. paul and attacked the surrounding communities, burning, assaulting, robbing and speed a tactical advantage over us in the early days of last week. and so yesterday minnesota's public safety group, chiefs of police, sheriffs, federal law enforcement, intel analysts, fire and ems, and the minnesota national guard, all came together to take a different approach to how we were going to keep the peace, which i think is the most fundamental job of any cop. i always tell people i don't think of myself as a police officer. i think of myself as a peace officer. and that's what we set out to do. we created a different organizational model at the multiagency community coordination center. and we briefed that model and we set out fast-moving teams throughout the twin cities area to targets we knew were of high value and high probability of attack. we worked the intel. we worked with community. i want to emphasize that. we worked with community to identify where those high value targets would be and we proceed positioned staff so they would be immediately adjacent and we gave this mandate to them. get there fast. speed is of the essence. stop the violence. stop the criminal activity. do not sit back and wait for enough resources to get there to have the perfect plan. get in there and get it done rapidly. in addition to that, we set up more traditional mechanisms. mobile field forces. they're bigger, they're stronger, but if you were going to confront a large crowd of committed rioters, armed and ready to do damage, we needed to make sure we had those resources there. and then i am so terribly grateful for general jensen's folks, because they then anchored critical infrastructure, freeing up law enforcement, freeing up peace officers, fire and others to be able to go out and be that rapid response force that we needed. that plan was started yesterday at 4:00, roughly, 1600 hours, and by 1800 hours our poins points of contact were in place. we were already receiving information and we continued our communications throughout the night. preliminary data, and that's all this is at this point, by about 2:00 in the morning there were about 25 arrests on the hennepin county side, and that there were about 30 arrests on the ramsey county side. but i know that between 2:00 and 0600 hours this morning, it sounds like we have had additional arrests that were made, maybe as many as another 40 or 50 arrests that were made. and we'll get that information for you. we did take action, as the governor outlined to us, to ensure that people's safety was going to be protected. we did use the curfew effectively. we did not allow the rioters to get set up, and we kept the rioters moving. at every opportunity we arrested the rioters for violations of the curfew, and just as importantly, i want people to think about this, a large number of the arrests we made over the last -- over last night were for weapons violations. we took ar-15s off people, we took guns off people. we noted that, once again, their tactics had also changed. we noted that we were seeing cars drive through our neighborhoods and through our communities without any license plates on them and with their lights out and windows blacked out. police moved to stop those vehicles. and when they did, the drivers and occupants of those vehicles fled on foot. some were arrested. as is always the case, you can't catch everybody. but when we went back to those cars, we found that several of them had been stolen locally and we found they were full of rocks and other weapons that were being driven to places so that more damage and more assaults could take place. we got innovative last night. one of the missions the governor cave us was fire suppression. fire suppression is want normally in my wheelhouse, i will admit. we went to the state fire marshal and dnr who do fire suppression as part of their regular mission and we got innovative there. we started using aviation support to support a fire suppression mission. we were able to pull in additional fire companies from the suburbs to help support minneapolis and st. paul's fire. we didn't need very many of them. we were really very, very fortunate. i'll take good luck over most everything most days. in addition to the fire suppression mission, the last piece of this that i wanted to say is we also really did work the information mission. and we knew we were getting tips from community. we got tips -- i was on the phone with church leaders, long into the night, with rumors of riots and looting that were coming to their communities. we were able to debunk most of those rumors, but we were also able to alert church leaders when a set of rumors came that black churches were going to be attacked. we were able to alert some significant church leaders that this was, at least a rumor we were hearing and working to either confirm or deny that rumor. that allowed the churches to do what they needed to do to protect their facilities and places of faith. over the night, as i said, we had significant number of arrests. we had one officer that was shot at. the officer was not hit. we arrested the two people that were in the car from which the shot was fired. we recovered an ar-15 rifle in that particular case. what i will say in conclusion is, this was a team effort. this was the state patrol and dnr to working an area that's not their normal area of responsibility. and they stood tall. this was sheriffs from all over the state of minnesota sending me their corrections officers and deputies and literally coming to the mac themselves to make sure we had the resources we needed. this was federal law enforcement partners, the fbi, the u.s. attorney's ce, the u.s. marshal, sending us additional driven by facts and not necessarily running around unifm cops. and, finally, last but not least, this was an overwhelming support by the minnesota national guard, coming in and locking down critical facilities so that first responders could, in fact, respond and respond quickly. at this time i will turn the mic over to general jensen from the minnesota national guard. >> good morning, everyone, i'm major john jenson, acting general of the minnesota national guard. the minnesota national guard continues to build our presence and integration with our law enforcement partners across minneapolis and st. paul. last night we completed 19d missions supporting law and order operations, fire response and ems support. this morning i had the opportunity to visit minneapolis and visit my soldiers and airmen who are in support of this operation. and i'm impressed and inspired by these men and women who in just a few short hours left their lives as civilians, as school teachers, business owners, mechanics, truck drivers, and in a very short period transitioned into the role as citizen soldier, citizen airman, and operated with professionalism andation in an incredibly dangerous and complex environment. commissioner harrington talked about this was a team effort, and it absolutely is a team effort. we're a small part of that team. we're incredibly proud to be a part of that team, both in minneapolis and in st. paul. but we also know this, and several of the briefers this morning talked about this, a tremendous amount of work remains ahead of us. we are committed to all of that work, whether it's this week, next month or into the future. thank you. at this time i'll be followed by colonel langer from the state patrol. >> thank you. >> thank you, general, and good morning. yesterday i stood here and i think i led with asking for the support for minnesotans. as i stand here 24 hours later, after a very difficult, tiring, dangerous, dynamic night, first thing i want to say is thank you to the support of minnesotans for helping us get through the night in a way that was very different than the previous nights this week. and while we were proud and humbled to accept the incredible challenge given to us by governor walz to restore order and bring peace to the city of minneapolis, make no mistake about it, the state patrol didn't do this alone. the state patrol relies heavily on the relationships have we developed over the history of our organization across minnesota with allied agencies. i cannot thank enough the police chiefs and sheriffs who dropped everything and sent their people to a community that they don't normal police, to help make the city safer. state troopers, the dnr conservation officers, the entire national guard, county sheriff's deputies, police officers, all the dispatchers and other people who support those that you see in uniform, thank you is all that comes to mind, but it's not enough. the selfless service traveling from all areas of the state to the metro region, to risk their personal safety for the greater good really needs to be driven home. it was a dangerous night. it was a dangerous action. it was dynamic. it was inpredictable. anyone who watched what happened all the rest of this week knew that that was likely what was in front of us last night. but as you know, our plan was different, it was unified, we were committed and although we're never perfect and oftentimes our hardest critics and there are always lessons learned, i stand on the back side of last night to say our goal was accomplished. fires were not set. we didn't see the lawlessness. we didn't see the risk to personal safety, the crime, the looting, the burglary, the property destruction was stemmed. that was our goal. that was our expectation. that is our hope as we move forward. i appreciate the support of minnesota and i can't, again, say thank you enough to both those in minnesota who supported us and continue to support us and listen to the advice and obey the curfew, and again thank those front line first responders, our state troopers and others who came together and put their lives on the line to make the city safer and to make minnesota a safe place for everybody. thank you. >> thank you, colonel. >> again, i too want to echo my thanks, harrington, colonel langer, jensen, for all the folks there doing this incredible mission. i have to note that we are not done yet. at this point in time i would like to announce we're going to extend the curfew into this evening as well as some operational moves that will continue to be put out today like the closing of the major highways. in talking about what it takes to make this happen, you're hearing a lot of thanks. i think there's a lot of untold stories out there of everyone making this happen, trying to make support from our business communities. i received communications from charlie weaver, who leads up our minnesota business partnership, making us understand all the private businesses who are already hurting in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic and those restrictions out there providing food and support to our first responders. i want to thank all of them. and i also want to thank for minnesotans that our democracy is dependent on checks and balances. our democracy is dependent on how things have a transparency to make sure we're making the right decisions and able to correct those, to bring back a place where civil liberties are critically important and that that legislative process is part of this. with that being said, i want to be clear, the responsibility of once this organization to put it in place, to put it in pieces, to task the areas. there's only one person in minnesota that can issue that order to go and that's myself as governor of minnesota. that means the responsibilities are mine when i sent those folks into the field to operate. the outcomes of that and how that was conducted and the guidance to them falls back with me. and i think what's important, though, is there are other voices in this. and last night i want to thank, and this has been active from -- you heard about the church leaders and everybody, but the legal responsibility of our legislators to be a part of this. they have been constantly on the phone, basically doing the thing great legislators do. fielding questions and concerns and problem-solving for their constituents. whether they be house members or senate members or leaderships of those organizations. last night in the final briefing and the execution of this operation was going to be put in place before i was giving the order, those leaders were briefed. and speaker melissa hortman, speaker of the house, susan kent joined us by phone, and majority leader and minority leader joined us in the emergency operation center where they received a brief from my on-the-ground commanders. i gave them my commanders' intend of what would happen and what would be done. they asked all the right questions and i just want to say, and i won't speak for them, they'll speak for themselves, but the sentiment is we're clearly political rivals put our love for this state and our desire to get this right was expressed. i want to say thank you to them understanding how very difficult for them this is to watch at this time. but their support, their continuing to ask questions, probe and challenge to make us do this right is greatly appreciated. with that i open it up for questions. >> governor, i would like to ask you, why didn't you have that same massive show of force on friday night? thursday night, the 3rd precinct was burnt down, businesses were destroyed. thursday night was a bad night. why not? >> well, the first thing i would say is i've seen this and we've discussed this both from a military perspective. the question is always going to get asked, why did you not have enough and why did you have too much? i was asked, can i guarantee minnesotans will have safety in their homes. i said i would give my very best effort. the reporters two hours later were saying, is this excessive use of force we're seeing? one thing is logistically to bring them there. i think on the timing we understood. one of the critiques is why didn't we ko this wednesday or why didn't we do it tuesday? there's logistics of adding the type of force we had out there. all the dynamics of a community that is raw from law enforcement. keeping in mind what the spark is that lit this was law enforcement killing an innocent man on the street. so trying to measure when the proper time was, when it was right to be there, i will not make excuses. in retrospect i think you could go back, if we had assembled this force last friday, we would have been better off, but that wasn't going to be, that wasn't the case. again, i'm the only one that can issue those responsibilities. that means if you're going to do that, and in our country it's important, if it succeeds because you did that, that's fine but you also need to stand here if it didn't. i'm not going to second guess. i think it was -- again, i felt most comfortable that we had our forces in place to be able to do that. but it's something that i will have to deal with that, that loss of property and the anguish is there is simply real. that's retrospect and i have to look to the future. peter? >> yesterday council for minnesota african-americans asked you, the head of the county attorney be taken off the prosecution of this case. i would like your views on that. do you have any authority to do that? two, if you do, is it something you're considering? >> this question has been asked a lot. this is complex. i have folks that let me know what the laws are and they last week and still at this point trying to keep me from not using my authority of the governor to jeopardize the legal proceedings that are out there. but i hear this. i hear there is concerns. we have explored and i do believe at this point in time it's not clear-cut and i think we probably need to -- we probably need to explain that or have the opportunity to talk to the public of where that's at. but that is a potential possibility. at this time, no decision has been made and we'll continue to explore that because mayor carter said it, everyone here said it, this issue of justice, there is no one in the communities, especially the black community, until they see results, is in any way going to feel comforted. they've seen this before. they've seen incremental change. they've seen times of crisis. they've seen governors stand up in front of them and tell them never again. so when there is those leaders and outcries on numerous fronts, things we have not done before but needs to be done, i hear them. >> governor, if i could ask a follow-up to peter's question, from doug glass at the associated press. he specifically asks that -- the same question about a special prosecutor but says that the floyd family has specifically requested attorney general keith ellison to be the special prosecutor, as has half of the minneapolis city council. your thoughts on that? >> that's correct. the siblings of george floyd asked me personally on this, and we had that conversation. i have received from the city council and from legislators that request. i think it goes to the question that both of you are asking. there's a desire on this. i think it's incumbent upon me in consultation with these leaders, certainly from the legal aspect to make sure i don't do anything to jeopardize justice in this, but to recognize that the communities themselves are asking certain things and i need to explore it. i can just tell you at this point in time, no decision has been made, but certainly as we're saying, it is out there, it is being considered.nment wee sure we're exploring every option. anyone else? >> sure. we heard multiple times from officials, it's outside agitators from outside minnesota, outside the area driving the violence. do you still believe that's the case? and the arrests you made last night, are those folks within the state, from the metro area or beyond it? >> i want to address this. i certainly believe the sophistication of this. again, i don't want to get out ahead of what is proprietary. this is a fine line. my inclination is to be as transparent and give things forward. before our operation kicked off last night, a very sophisticated denial of service attack on all state computers was executed. that's not somebody sitting in their basement. that's pretty sophisticated. but i do want to address this. i want to let you folks talk about the numbers. i think the confusion around this and the focusing on it, i did last -- last night when i went home to shower late before coming back up here, i'll just candidly -- there's the confusion of all that's happening. we're getting data in. it's hard to get the date directly on arrests. what we're hearing from human intelligence coming in. i think, candidly, i certainly think i want to believe it's outside more, and that might go to the problem that we have of saying, can't be minnesotans, can't be minnesotans who did this. i've said all along, to be very clear about this, in saying that i think, and i know there are outside folks in there, whether predominance, whether leading it or not, i've been very clear and i'll say it again this morning, the catalyst that started all of this was the murder of george floyd in minnesota. and that was our problem. and so, we'll get more data on this. i think wherever these folks are coming from to cause this harm, we have to address it. i do want to be very clear. the idea of saying they're outside forces is not to deflect and pretend we don't have that. i do think it's an important question. at this time, i don't know if there's anything to add. i don't have any specifics on this other than to say it does not look like -- i can't speak about the arrests. i'll >> john harrington again. the data we had from yesterday, there was about 20% of the folks arrested came from outside of the state of minnesota. we're tracking folks from arkansas, from kansas city, from iowa and illinois. and i believe michigan. in the pool of folks that were arrested yesterday. i still don't have the booking sheets yet from last night, so i can't give you any additional information on that in terms of the most current set of arrests. but 20% yesterday -- of yesterday's arrests had out-of-state addresses we were tracking. >> thank you. >> thank you for the question. i think this is one we still need to explore more. again, just in that moment of candidness, it's easier sometimes for us to believe, but that also, i think, people understand in this broader issue, that leads to some of the systemic issues. yes, sir. >> governor, can you talk about tonight and the next couple of days what people, particularly in the worst hit areas, should think about, you know, continue, to take precautions, those sorts of -- >> yeah. and i think today will be -- again, the mayor has talked about this. you'll see the best minnesota has to offer. there are people already out there cleaning, building, doing things. this may be a question, we're going to keep in place that curfew. we'll keep in place, and communicate with the public clearly today. there will be critiques of me in is excessive. why are you keeping the force on the ground? we i think it's irresponsible. i don't think people quit. in light of what we're seeing around the country, these have expanded. we're asking people to today to continue on what they're doing. we're going to encourage you throughout the day and, again, i want to add to that cooperation. i do know there will be people that were on the streets last night after the curfew that are there because they are outraged about what happened to george floyd. they were out on the streets after 8:00. not to cause or thinking about causing riots. but as we said yesterday, we can't separate in that, and these people are hiding behind them. so, i'm going to ask the leaders again to ask those folks to stay home after 8:00, to ask them to give us the space and we are going to not allow our streets to be turned into chaos. we'll be smart with our force that's out there. and, of course, continue to monitor the situation. we certainly, as i think folks know, we cannot stay in this posture forever. that's why it's important today to start sending strong signals on the things to the people that caused this and the catalyst that caused it are being worked on, are being talked about. i will spend time talking once again with faith leaders, community leaders, with folks looking at law enforcement reform. all of those things will happen. but to minnesotans, i would tell you this, we have a bright, sunny last day of may. our city was not burning. we had no loss of life. we saw our communities come together around this, be a day, i think, to start the healing, but come 8:00 tonight and before that, i'd ask us to make sure we can maintain that. peter? >> thank you. i have a question for chief of police. at risk of being one of those reporters who questions tactics, i'm going to ask about tactics. >> we're going to come back here for a moment. we'll keep an eye on this press conference in case a little more continues. quite a different tone from the officials that we've heard speak today. the governor tim walz, jacob frey, mayor of minneapolis, melvin carter, who you saw on this program, had to leave to be part of that press conference, john harrington, commissioner of minnesota department public of safety, head of minnesota national guard john jensen and colonel matthew langer, state patrol chief. you had john harrington, the minnesota department of public health official commissioner say the goal was met last night. there were no lootings or fires. he stood by what was done by the police department, despite what we saw, including what happened to our own ali velshi, excessive policing, aggressive policing, some might say over policing, overaggressive. he stood by that because the outcome, according to mr. harrington, was met. made no excuses. said they were not perfect. we also heard governor walz ask the question, why that kind of force was not in place when the demonstration start tuesday night after release of additional video showing the death of george floyd, which outraged so many people and kicked off these protests, the night the fires started, the night the sort of mayhem that you saw in the streets of minneapolis, why wasn't that force in place? he said he had no excuses for that. he said he was the one responsible for putting that kind of force in place and putting those rye sourcresource place and he couldn't look backwards, he needed to look forward. quite a climb down from what governor walz said yesterday. we went from all of the people who were arrested during the first night of were committing fires from were out of state to 80% yesterday when that was revised, to 20% today. the public safety commissioner, john harrington, said that they are looking at 20% of the people who were arrested had out-of-state licenses, driver's licenses, from places as far as arkansas and kansas city. they are further looking into the data to try to get a handle on how many of the people were from out of state. the governor tim walz also added they don't want to imply that they don't have those kind of problems in-house. governor walz also speak to the pain of these communities and said that he has been in touch with faith leaders and community leaders, trying to talk about how they can go forward. you did hear melvin carter, the mayor say the new normal cannot be the old normal, things have to fundamentally change. he spoke directly to proteste mayor carter said he's not asking for passivism, not waiting for patience for violence against black people to end. he said he's asking people to channel those energies into building up the communities, building up their communities. i'm joined by junior senator from minnesota, tina smith, with me congresswoman ilhan omar, ali velshi. senator, i'm going to you first to get a reaction to that. a big difference in the tone today of this press conference. what do you make of these back-and-forth questions about who it is responsible for burning parts of black minneapolis? >> well, thank you, joy. i want to thank you for your honest and straightforward reporting of this incredibly complicated situation. what i took out of this is that the fundamental message i think i took out of yesterday as well, which is people in these communities do not burn down their own grocery stores. they do not desecrate the community benefit organizations that are there in their own communities because they are there for them. and the -- what happened last night is, i think, i hope, a turning point in terms of ending this violence against our community, perpetrated by what appears to have been an organized effort. but, you know, i'm thinking first thing this morning, i went and -- down to 38th and chicago, which is just a few miles from where i live, and had a chance to be with some members of the community and that really sacred space where george floyd was murdered. and the sense that i got there in that community was, it was all focused on this man who lost his life and i hope that as we move forward we can regain our purpose on floyd and how we can get justice for him, do the kind of systemic reform we need in the minneapolis police department and address the fundamental inequity in that community on 38th and chicago and communities like it all over this country. >> senator smith, you know, i think to that very point, you know, this started with police abuse, abusive behavior toward the black community that's been systemic, it's built up, the george floyd case just exploded it and the frustrations people already felt. i want to ask you about how confident are you that not just the police department in minneapolis but that police departments around the country can actually change that if they don't change fundamentally. i want to play you the minneapolis police union president. this was his appearance at a donald trump rally back in october of 2019. take a listen. >> the obama administration and the handcuffing and oppression of police was despicable. the first thing president trump did when he took office was turn that around. got rid of the holder and decided to start taking -- letting the cops do their jobs. put the handcuffs on the criminals instead of us. >> and just one thing that it's just that one police department. you had tweets going out from the nypd commissioner. they had a lot of issues last night with overpolicing, violent policing of peaceful protesters. you know, and actually congratulating police officers on the way that they behaved, saying essentially, you know, good for you. you did a great job. you faced disrespect and denigration, even though in brooklyn, new york, one police cruiser hit some protesters with a car -- or ran through them with a car. can police change if that attitude doesn't change? or can the relationship with the community change if the attitude doesn't change? >> absolutely not. and sergeant krull, head of the minneapolis police federation, my heart beats when i listen to him because he makes me so angry. he is the root of what is -- he is emblematic of the problems we have with systemic -- abuse of racism in the minneapolis police department. here's what we need to do. i have called on this with senator klobuchar. we need the justice department, civil rights division, to come in and look at the department just like they did in ferguson and in los angeles, look at the patterns and practices of abuse and bias and racial discrimination. and then look at the -- look at doing a decree to fix this problem. it is not going to be fixed because we hope it is. hope is not a strategy here. we need to get at the root of it. you know, i want to just add i worked with the minneapolis police department when i was the chief of staff at the mayor of minneapolis. i know there are good officers in the minneapolis police department, officers connected to their community. i'm sure that representative omar would say the same thing from her -- from where she sits in minnesota's fifth district, but the -- the abuses we see in that department can only be rooted out if we go after this head on and not just pretend like we can address it by new policies or new procedures. >> but you mentioned senator klobuchar. we did ask for senator klobuchar. i wanted to note she was welcome to come on this show as well. she was the hennepin county prosecutor. the hennepin county prosecutor took quite a while to bring charges against officerchauvin. has not brought charges against the other three officers. police are rarely charged with a crime even when caught on tape or quite clear to the public they abused their power. senator klobuchar did not prosecute any police officers for misconduct. does the link between the prosecutor and the police department need to be -- need to be severed? does an outside entity, as senator harris has said, need to be the one responsible for bringing charges if they are warranted and not the local prosecutor? do you think that needs to be a federal statute? >> well, i think we should look at all options here. i completely understand the conflict, the potential conflict between prosecutors and police departments when the two of them are relying on one another in some cases to accomplish the charges and the prosecutions they make. but i look to the fundamental issue that americans and minnesotans, the people in my community, have got to be able to trust there is going to be equal protection under the law. they are going to seek consequences and accountability when we see this terrible abuse of authority and oppression that is put forth by the police department. so, i think we have to get to that fundamental issue of trust. and i understand why people don't trust the prosecutors are going to follow through because they've seen it over and over and over again that justice isn't served. >> senator tina smith, thank you. really appreciate your time this morning. thank you. stay safe out there. >> thank you. >> i want to bring in -- >> thank you. congresswoman omar, i do want to bring you back and allow you to respond as well to that press conference. did you hear anything there that made you feel hopeful that things are fundamentally on the road to change? >> yes. i think it was really important to hear the governor remind folks how this all began. this was law enforcement taking the life of george floyd, and centering that gives people the opportunity to know that their governor is not going to lose sight of the fact that we are fighting to get justice for george floyd and justice for every single person who has been impacted by our injust system. and the other piece that i heard was an understanding, really, that the kind of forceful response that people were hoping for prior to last night and calling for didn't take place because the governor and many of our leaders understood that when emotions are raw and the community is dealing with the fact that law enforcement just took the life of one of their community members, it might not be the best thing to show up with aggression. and that really was sort of the escalation that began us on this road to destruction. and that understanding from the governor, from our leaders, is really important in setting the course for what happens after that. for too long people are given perfect statements. people know that as they fight for their humanity to be recognized, it will ultimately be denied, that justice is not only going to be delayed but it will be denied. and what we are now seeing is at least an acknowledgment that that's not going to happen, and that it has happened before, because when you speak of the problem, when you speak of it openly, it allows for us to actually address it. and police brutality is real in this country and in our community, and we cannot work on reform without realizing that there is something rotten within our policing systems, and we have to really clean it up and restart over. >> yeah. you know, i want to -- please, i hope i can hold you for a few more minutes. i want to go to ali velshi because he's still on the streets of minneapolis. i want to find out what is going on there, ali? have the protests begin to build back up again? what i see behind you is a lot of construction or reconstruction. >> reporter: yeah, there's a clean-up crew out here. it's kind of incredible. there are people with buckets, brooms, mops, shovels, cleaning up the street. i've seen this all morning, by the way. i saw it all yesterday morning as well. people are coming out here, civil society has failed minneapolis this week, but its protesters have not and its clean-up crews, citizens trying to make this a better place have not failed the city. i will say, i think the senator had a lot of this wrong, and i think the governor has a lot of it wrong. the idea of focusing on whether there are agitators from outside and whether this should be about george floyd misses the point in american cities and misses the point in this city in particular. in is not a majority black city. the proportion of african-americans in this city is lower than on average. it's about 12%, 13% across the country, it's 8% in this city. it's a large immigrant population. the median income for black households here is $38,000. less than half the medium income for white household. white household ownership is greater than black household ownership by a bigger margin than america. a house for afternoon meshes is not a road to wealth as in some other places. combining that with what the representative was saying, by looking at what happened to george floyd, what you look at is across the entire soc socioeconomic, legal spectrum. blacks don't count in minneapolis. all this nonsense about focusing on george floyd and this being about george floyd and don't do these things that are destructive is nonsensical. i was kind of surprised to hear it from the senator. this is institutional, socioeconomic injustice and racism. that's what's behind this. that's why people are prepared to come out and do damage to private property. to suggest it is out of staters and all that, it misses the fundamental point of what is wrong in minneapolis and what is wrong in so many american cities. people in phoenix were not protesting because of george floyd. they were protesting because george floyd is this week's symbol of the inequality that african-americans continue to face in this country, in this city, and that is -- we need to remember both. you need to say his name. you need to say everybody else's name who died and you need to remember that list is so long because the underlying problem, as the congresswoman said, is not getting fixed. >> well, you know what, it's sunday. that was a word, ali velshi. you just gave us a word. amen to what you just said. thank you, ali velshi. i want to thank you, first of all, for how amazing and how personal your reporting has been. and you're out there taking those risks for us. i appreciate it. please be safe out there, ali velshi. thank you. i know you're safe among the protesters because they're there for the right reasons. thank you. always appreciate you. i want to bring in bakari sellers, the author of "my vanishing country." the youngest state legislator in south carolina at one point. and then you became a political commentator. a lot of people have seen you on the other network that has a sunday show. and now you have written this incredible book. i still hope we have ilhan omar. you have both written books about what america is from two very different perspectives. your perspective is unique. tell us about your dad, your father 50 years ago faced police violence and that is a big part of that story. tell us about that. >> well, first, thank you for having me this morning. you know, i'm a child of the civil rights movement. my father february 8, 1968 was shot by law enforcement in south carolina. it's a tragedy that oftentimes goes unremembered in this country. three young men were killed, henry smith, all the officers were tried, all found not guilty. they charged, tried and convicted my father of rioting. he was the first and only one man riot in the history of this country. and i say on that night injustice left mothers without their sons and left the pages of my state's history you the stained blood red and my sister born without her father. but, in my book, "in my vanishing country" is something ali was talking about what we're seeing. i was so disappointed in the united states senator from minnesota just listening to her today because this is not just about george floyd. this is about systemic racism and systemic injustice and systemic oppression. i'm 35. my father is 75. we're still sharing many of the same experiences. whether or not it's magr repers, em tillman, george cheney or george floyd, ahmaud arbery, breanna taylor. we have made progress but we have a way to go. people are protesting not just george floyd but the fact they have to go back to schools falling apart, dirty water, unclean air, you know, they can't get access to quality resources. so, america is at a tipping point. don't just go tell us to go out and vote. give us solutions to help improve our plight. >> it is fascinating to me that at the same time the two of you have books out that are about fundamentally what america is for black people, whether for black immigrants like yourself, congresswoman omar, or whether it is for african-americans who go all the way back, you know, and have enslaven as part of their legacy. i want to bring in the congresswoman for a moment. your book is called "this is what america looks like" and bak ari's book is called "my vanishing country." it's like two pieces of a whole. you almost need to read them together. tell us from your perspective, the community in minnesota is largely immigrant, as ali pointed out, so it is a different experience. >> so, i would say i don't know if the black community in minnesota is largely immigrant. i would say the african-american community is probably larger than the black immigrant community here. but when you look at and you think about the kind of america i arrived in for black americans, for african-americans, it's one of enslavement, it's one of lynching, it's one of jim crow, it's one of mass incarceration, police brutality, one where social and economic neglect has taken place. oftentimes people would criticize me and say, you found the american dream, ilhan. you came to the united states. you came from a country that was engulfed in civil war. you lived through life in a refugee camp. you cake me to america. why aren't you happy? the reality is there is an america we export to the rest of the world that isn't really true for anybody who shares my identity inside of this united states of america. that real justice and equality and path to prosperity doesn't exist for the majority of the people that look like me and look like my son. the reality here in minnesota is even though we are number one for everything that is great, we are on the bottom for everything when it comes to black people in the united states. we have one of the worst racial disparity gaps. our homeownership rates are ridiculous. we have mass incarceration, we have issues with policing, we have many deaths that have taken place in our community at the hands of the police. and so when we talk about minnesota being the great state it is, the united states being the great country it is, you have to ask yourself, who is it great for? and for many of us, it's not. so, when you are seeing people coming out to the streets, they're not only coming out because they want justice for george floyd. they want justice for every single mother who has be afraid for her black son to go outside and grow up in this country. for every person who's felt like it is not fair for the kind of disparities to exist within the school systems that black kids go to and the school systems where white kids go to, the neighborhoods where black people live and the neighborhoods where our white counterparts live. >> you know, bakari, it's such a familiar story that could be the story in south carolina as well. >> yes. and, you know, we have a schools where kids go to school with with where the infrastructure falls apart. i talk about it's a food desert. our hospitals closed because we didn't expand medicaid. you're inhaling pollutants, drinking bad water. you talk about the systemic injustices and then you have this death quaurnt where people are obsessed where black bodies are murdered and laying on the streets. you combine that with weesh in a pandemic. you know this, america got covid and black people died. i want people to stop looting. i want people to stop flipping over cars and burning down businesses, but i also want justice. do not tell us to be peaceful if you're not also saying that we want justice. i was talking to my good friend yesterday, both black fathers. he has all boys and i have two girls and a boy. we were just talking about parenting in this new environment and how we've become desensitized and how we become desensitized as a coping mechanism. what we want in this country, what i talk about in "my vanishing country" is i want my children to be free and i want justice to finally be a verb in this country. not just a noun. i want it to be action in this country. i want the officers arrested, but i also want tina smith and amy klobuchar to talk about lowering the standard so we can bring federal civil rights cases against these law enforcement officers. i want them to talk about qualified immunity. i want them to talk about some specific policy initiatives, some racial policy initiatives because we have race-specific problems in this kublt. it's not a rising tide lifts all boats. i was looking at my good friend jim clyburn this morning saying, go out and vote. yes, that's accurate. but we want more than that. i want our congress people, our leadership across the country to give us concrete solutions. we need new voting rights act, new civil rights act, new fair housing act. it's unfortunate you the, as lz in this country, we have to have black blood on the streets for that to happen. that's what i talk about in "my vanish, country". >> we've been adding and adding people in because we had that press conference that shook up the way things are working so i'm going to add again, congresswoman sheila jackson from texas is on the line. let's bring her into this conversation as well. congresswoman, you are someone who is the principal mover behind hr-40, an attempt to answer what you just heard bakari sellers talk about. what do question do about the systematic injustices that congresswoman omar and mr. sellers were talking about. you recently had a press conference with the family, with george floyd's family, who are from houston, and they are your constituents. tell us about that. >> first of all, there needs to be action and justice. and i believe, truly, that congress can fix these problems and there should be no tolerance. there should be zero tolerance for inaction by congress. it's a shame when the president of the united states talks about looters and now shooters or talks about dogs and ominous weapons rather than seeking action to heal the absolute absurdity that went on with george floyd. my sympathy to his family. i was with brandon, his nephew. brandon was like a son to george. george was like a father to brandon. and we've made a commitment to this family for justice. i want the attorney general, the u.s. attorney general and the assistant attorney general in minneapolis to stop being a puppet of local authorities. they need to do a deep dive and begin to bring charges that would arrest the other three. omission is a crime. when you watch a crime and you do not do anything about it, you are as well an offender. those individuals should be arrested. this should be a question of whether or not first-degree murder is appropriate and the u.s. attorney should be engaged, the fbi should be engaged. this should not take this long. if you remember, joy, more than 25 years ago, those who beat rodney king savagely were acquitted. what happened? all of the ills and the sins of that community came out and people looted and rioted because there was pain and there was no help. so, h.r. hoye, the concept of reparations deals with the systemic change that needs to come about. all the things my good friend ilhan and i are so concerned and praying for her leadership and so grateful for her leadership, so grateful to see bakari as well, watching what was going on, i marched last night. it is systematic, it is racism. it is absurd when young people come to me and say, why is it murder three? why isn't the u.s. attorney standing up and saying, we're taking this case now? why is the president not saying, not about shooting and dogs, but saying, we're going to get to the bottom of this, not next week but now? hesitancy and waiting has created what we're seeing. our young people, our protesters, as i protested, we're not foolish. we're doing it because there's no action. and for the police, this week we're going to be introducing a police accountability bill. we know we have bills. we have bills of cooling off period. if the congress acts now, we have bills. we get them passed. the president needs to sign them. people need to see we're not just talking, that we're acting on the question of justice. >> we are moving here. i'm looking to see what we have available. i want to see if i can pull up this video. the powerful statement that the nephew of george floyd made when he was with you, congresswoman, in houston. we're working on that. a bill like the ones you are talking about that congresswoman presley was talking about that you are working on, if, indeed, it can even pass the house, how do you -- how does the public mount the kind of pressure and use the kind of leverage to get a bill like that through mitch mcconnell, through lindsey graham? because there is another side to this that is not interested in working on these issues, not even interested in making sure people get a little bit of extra unemployment. they said they will lay down on the tracks to stop that. how can something like that go from becoming a good legislative idea to getting all the way through to becoming law? >> that's a really good question. i would start with this. we have been talking about these pieces of legislation for a while now. and we now introducing more pieces of legislation to get us the nationwide reforms that we need. and as democrats who have leadership and control over the house, we have to first act. we have to take that step to say, we acknowledge these kind of systematic changes need to take place. and then from there, we move forward. what we currently don't have is a commitment for that to take place. the bill on reparations has been advocated for by my colleague sheila jackson lee now for quite some time. we haven't been able to move that. we haven't been able to bring it to house vote. we have had the eric garner choke hold piece of legislation introduced. that hasn't come to a floor vote. our resolution, which should be a no brainer to say, right, we collectively condemn police brutality and racism and want accountability is currently not being supported by the majority of the house, even the democratic side. so before we can have a conversation about how we are going to force the republicans to be on our side, we have to take responsibility and say, we are going to lead first and then ask for others to follow us. >> that is an excellent point. congresswoman jackson lee, that is a point that democrats have to be willing to fight hard for progressive reform on their own side before they can begin to deal with republicans. no? >> joy, that's my point. a stop sign has to be removed right now. if there's a moment in history where the stop sign to come down, meaning hesitation, the police unions -- this is a time i call on my brothers in blue and my sisters in blue who we have always advocated for their safety. this is a time for them to stand alongside of truth and righteousness. we need them to be able to support the legislation that we have just mentioned. hr-40 is really a no brainer along with many others dealing with the question of racism. it's a no brainer. it doesn't hurt to be able to talk about systemic race ism an how you solve it. when i was standing out at the high school where george floyd went, we had a chant, no choke hold, no choke hold. when will we say this again and someone else dies? i think where our posture is right now is to take the message that i have said, listening to our citizens who are calling on us to act. we heard bakari call on us to act and our members are calling on us to act. that means we cannot look at divides, regions. we must look at what is right to do. brandon said he wants justice. he said yesterday, i want justice. i don't understand why my uncle, my father figure was killed on the streets and was not helped and in essence was murdered because once you sit to the point that someone is non-responsive and then you are continuing, you have killed that person. i don't think there's any leeway, joy, to say no or that i'm helping at this time. >> do we have time to play that sound bite? i don't think we do. i'm asking the producers. can we play it quickly? let's play -- this is the nephew. his name is brandon. let's play it quickly. >> we don't hate law enforcement. something needs to be done. it has to stop. i'm starting to feel like it's normalized and nothing about that is right. the future of the nation and the world. people are fed up. we're hurt, angry, disgusted. >> i want to thank congresswoman omar, bakari sellers and congresswoman jackson lee. if you want to hear more, you can check out my podcast. congratulations to congresswoman omar on her book as well. this has been a packed show. we got a lot in. we have more after this short break. alright so...oh. i'll start... oh, do you want to go first? no, no i don't...you go. i was just going to say on slide 7, talking about bundling and saving...umm... jamie, you're cutting out. sorry i'm late! hey, whoever's doing that, can you go on mute? oh, my bad! i was just saying there's a typo on slide 7. bundle home & auto for big discosnouts. i think that's supposed to say discounts. you sure about that? hey, can you guys see me? ♪ we could never do what they do. but what we can do it be a partner that never quits. verizon is the most reliable network in america. built for interoperability and puts first responders first, giving their calls priority, 24/7. we do what we do best so they can too. a very good day to all of you from right here at msnbc headquarter headquarters. high noon on the east. a couple of live pictures. on the left, there you see times square where traffic is moving more freely than it usually does the past couple of months. to the right, we have chicago. that is where the mayor will be holding a briefing shortly. we are awaiting governor cuomo's news conference. as soon as that gets underway we will take you there. of course, both these discussions today will be reflecting the protests as well as the violence that's been seen since the death of george floyd. let's go now to the fallout from the unrest and protests around