The wife of Governor Tim Walz revealed she kept their home windows open as rioters burned down Minneapolis in 2020.
In June of that year, Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz said she opened the windows to smell the smoke from the destruction of lives and property across the city.
The riots were in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man, while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department. The incident saw Gov. Walz align with the violent protesters, a fact that is coming back to haunt him now that he’s the running mate for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Perhaps more subtly disturbing are the actions of the state’s first lady.
“With COVID-19, the entire state was watching what Tim did, but with Mr. Floyd’s death, it was the entire country and the whole world looking at and watching what we did here in Minnesota in response to that,” Gwen Walz told KSTP-TV in July 2021.
“Again we had more sleepless nights during the riots,” she said. “I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing.
“I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”
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As anyone watching the government-enabled collapse of social order after Floyd’s death knows, it wasn’t just tires that rioters were burning. In some instances, the smells coming though Mrs. Walz’s windows could have easily been charred human flesh.
At least one of the deaths that occurred during the Minneapolis riots was due to rioters burning down an occupied building.
Montez Lee, a 25-year-old man, was recorded boasting in front of the burning Max-It Pawn building on May 28 about starting the inferno, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Videos of the blaze and its towering smoke column spread like wildfire across social media, becoming an early indicator of what was to come for other American cities.
It went fast. pic.twitter.com/2CZBekptoS
— Nick Woltman (@nickwoltman) May 29, 2020
Two months after the blaze died down, authorities found a charred body amidst the rubble.
According to KMSP-TV, the deceased was identified as 30-year-old Oscar Lee Stuart Jr. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Stuart likely died of “inhalation of combustion and thermal injury.”
Lee, the man seen boasting in front of Max-It Pawn, was convicted of sparking the deadly fire.
At least two others were killed in the fiery riots.
The smell of destruction isn’t pleasant — all the thick, black smoke seen in riot footage is the result of burning plastics, petrochemicals and other inorganic and organic material, resulting in noxious clouds.
To be around this toxic smoke is unpleasant. To be in it is torturous.
If the governor and first lady wanted a “touchstone” moment, they should have spoken with the people whose lives were ruined by the chaos allowed to rage with leftist applause in Minneapolis.
Instead, the death and destruction that burned the city were used as incense for contemplation at the Walz home.
