After “mostly peaceful protests” razed his business “exactly to the ground,” a one-time Minneapolis bar owner shared his thoughts on “criminal” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz joining a presidential ticket.
“…total ineptness of leadership…”
Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t appear to be the only candidate widely viewed as falling up in her career as her running mate’s record was scrutinized. Having watched his bar burned by arsonists at the kickoff of the 2020 “summer of love,” 74-year-old Bill Hupp spoke with the New York Post about Walz’s responsibility for holding off on responding to the violence sweeping the city.
“It’s just complete neglect of the people you are supposed to represent,” the father of six told the newspaper. “He could have called [the guardsmen] in [but] he didn’t.”
Three days after George Floyd had died while in police custody, Hupp recalled how, along with his son and some of his son’s friends, he had been boarding up the windows of the Hexagon Bar when around 300 people had surrounded the 92-year-old establishment before 7 p.m.
“We thought they were going to kill us. They pretty much kidnapped up,” he expressed.
“We didn’t know if we were going to get out of there,” Hupp explained as he recalled rioters hurling shoes and frozen water bottles while preventing them from leaving amid shouts of “white privilege.”
Hours later, after they had managed to leave, the owner said he saw footage of the business torched by an arsonist, “All of a sudden everything went bright white.”
“It completely burned my place exactly to the ground,” he explained of the damage wrought by an arsonist as two accomplices with Molotov cocktails.
A Minnesota state Senate report released in Oct. 2020 had detailed that after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) had requested 600 guardsmen, Walz “first mobilized the Minnesota National Guard on the afternoon of Thursday, May 28, 18 hours after Mayor Frey requested assistance. The Minnesota National Guard was not fully mobilized until four days after the first building was burned.”
“I didn’t have a drop of water put on my place. Not a drop of water for those three and a half days! Crazy. It’s [a] complete loss of leadership, totally,” Hupp told the Post.
When Walz did respond to calls for assistance in returning a semblance of order to the city, the report specified, “Governor Walz eventually produced 100 guardsmen for the City of Minneapolis late in the evening on Thursday, May 28.”
Calling the vice president’s decision to have him as a running mate “absolute insanity” while deeming Walz “a criminal,” Hupp said, “It’s crazy. Why? Because of [his] total ineptness of leadership…[his] absolute ignorance of safety for people and the way of handling it properly.”
“He should have never been in the position he was in,” he added.
Meanwhile, as the governor stood by as riots raged that would spread across the country amounting to over $2 billion in damages, Harris, then-senator from California, was promoting the public, “chip in now to the [Minnesota Freedom Fund] to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.”
As Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton (R) put it, “Tim Walz is a perfect choice for Kamala Harris. He let BLM rioters, arsonists, and looters rampage through his state and she encouraged donations to the bail fund for the few who were arrested.”
Tim Walz is a perfect choice for Kamala Harris.
He let BLM rioters, arsonists, and looters rampage through his state and she encouraged donations to the bail fund for the few who were arrested. pic.twitter.com/xA9I6i6yfF
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) August 6, 2024
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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