Being more concerned about where protesters are coming from than the actions they are committing in the name of speaking out against the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd is a "distraction" from the conversation that should be happening, St. Paul, Minnesota Mayor Melvin Carter said Monday.
His comments came after having to walk back a statement over the weekend that every person arrested in the outbreaks of violence in his community were from other places.
"Whether those folks sleep in another state or sleep in another city or sleep in our city, it doesn't change the fact that when we have people who are destroying the local pharmacies in a pandemic that seniors rely on for life-saving medicine," Carter said on CNN's "New Day."
"We have a food shortage now and our grocery stores have been looted," he added. "When they are willing to destroy in the midst of an economic crisis the place that is our residents rely on not just for products but to be able to go to work and earn a living, then it's very clear there are people operating in our communities who are not operating on the basis of just a heartfelt desire to build up our neighborhoods."
Carter noted that people in St. Paul are, like everyone around the country, already traumatized from being in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as 40% of low-income workers lost their jobs in the months before Floyd was killed.
"We all work up a week ago tomorrow to that gruesome, shocking video of seeing the way his life was literally snuffed out by those officers," said Carter. "We have the same anger, the same rage, the same sadness as we have all over the country, which I want to point out is really the only human and compassionate response when you see someone killed in such a fashion like that."
St. Paul has implemented a citywide curfew, and is asking residents to channel their energy and pain into doing something constructive for the community.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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