YES. NEXT QUESTION? Did Tim Walz ‘Let Minneapolis Burn?’

There is one point on which everyone I spoke to seemed to agree: The destruction was orchestrated largely by agitators, not local protesters. Some of them were militant anarchists, and some were far-right groups like the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Bois, and the “Aryan Cowboys.”

“People there with a First Amendment right to protest were being used as cover, whether wittingly or unwittingly, for the destruction,” said one officer, who asked to remain anonymous.

[Minneapolis police lieutenant Kim Voss], who went undercover decades ago to investigate Antifa, told me that “this is what trained activists do. They found a crowd that was really ripe for it. A lot of the looters were local people—ones that got caught up in it. But they were puppets. The activists were the puppeteers.”

More than anyone, though, Voss blames Walz. She recalled once hearing Walz use the line, “We don’t abandon our folks,” referring to Democrats who were calling for Biden to exit the presidential race.

“I thought, You’re so full of shit,” she said. “You did. You left us all behind.”

Related: Tim Walz’s Wife Gwen Kept Windows Open During BLM Riots to ‘Smell the Burning Tires.’ “I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was — what was happening.”

Walz’s daughter was also apparently pro-rioters as well back then: