MINNEAPOLIS (NewsNation Now) — With the trial set to begin in March for Officer Derrick Chauvin for his role in George Floyd’s death, residents share how their city has changed since the May 2020 incident and the nationwide outcry.
Minneapolis resident Lyn Lais was one of the dozens of business leaders impacted by the protests that rippled across the city after Floyd’s death.
“Everything has been destroyed. The new gym, the laundromat, the apartment building across the street. Everything is like a war zone down here,” she explained while filming the damage to her own building,” said Lais.
NewsNation spoke with Kim Voss, retired Minneapolis Police Lieutenant about her experience on the force and the city’s preparation leading up to the trial. Watch the interview in the embedded player below.
As protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police turned violent, business owners did what they could to protect their livelihood. Some even pretended to be looters so they could salvage what they could.
Many of these businesses were caught up in the rioting since they are located in the same area as the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct. Protesters burned the precinct during the protesting turned rioting.
Lais showed NewsNation Correspondent Rudabeh Shahbazi the lingering damage to her business, months later.
“You see here we still have the two bullet holes that we are trying to get fixed,” she said.
Lais said her business, and others in the area, are still struggling to rebuild, months later.
“Many of us would not be able to survive and come back a second time. We’re barely making it now. The customers are not coming back to this area because there’s not enough businesses here to bring the draw, so all of us are down at least 50% right now, so with the upcoming trial, we’re concerned, we’re anxious and just hope to support our community through this,” Lais said.
Two months ago, the Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a budget shifting $8 million from the police department to violence prevention and other programs. In a statement, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey explained why the move was necessary:
“We’re not interested in simply building a bigger department, we’re setting out to create a better, fairer community safety system. And increasing capacity is a straightforward part of that work right now.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order preparing for activation of the state’s national guard and making available the Department of Public Safety’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, in preparation for any unrest.
Minneapolis Regional Chamber’s Vice President of Public Policy, Grace Waltz, said there has been a lot of coordination between the city, state, and local law enforcement and the National Guard for plans to protect businesses.
“[I] know this is gonna be a time of high emotion, we expect that people are gonna go out and be able to express their first amendment rights and they should be able to do that,” said Waltz. “We feel good about the preparations being made thus far.”
Brian Fullman, a community organizer, said that the unrest over the summer was a symptom of the need for systemic change in policing.
“I was never happy with the ending results. I never am, but there is a disenfranchised community of people that are just tired. And when you don’t have the resources you need to appropriately or productively fight your battles, you do what you can do. And that’s go out in the streets and scream to the top of your lungs that you have to stop killing us,” Fullman said.
When asked, Fullman said the community is focused more on a conviction for Derrick Chauvin and the other officers, not about what the protests or riots might look like.
“I can’t competently tell you right now that there’s been a lot of language around like protesting, what are we going to do? Because a lot of our folks in our community right now are just hopeful, we hopeful that with the clear evidence of just clear case murder with the intent to murder, it’s obvious. So there hasn’t been a lot of talk about, Oh man, if this don’t work out, because we are really confident that it will,” he said.
Lais said she and others at these businesses sympathize with the cause, but she just hopes for peace and economic survival.
“Everything was taken. And we saw the cars coming, loading up, and then they would go home and come back. I know some of it was our community members, and I know a lot of it was non-community members, so we unfortunately watched and were victim of the unrest turning to looting,” she said.
Derrick Chauvin’s trial will begin March 8. The other officers’ trials are expected to begin in August.