National Guard soldier reflects on George Floyd unrest deployment

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A former Minnesota National Guard solider is opening up about her deployment to assist with security amid rioting and looting following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

Mass demonstrations and civil unrest led to an unprecedented deployment of the National Guard. Five years later, questions remain about the timing of the deployment and mobilization of thousands of soldiers after widespread destruction occurred in the days after Floyd’s deadly arrest.

More than 7K soldiers, airmen deployed

Timeline:

Following days of rioting and civil unrest that damaged and destroyed scores of buildings and businesses in response to the police murder of George Floyd, Gov. Tim Walz signed Emergency Executive Order #20-64 on May 28, 2020. In issuing the order on the same day the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct was set ablaze; the governor officially declared a peacetime emergency and activated the Minnesota National Guard.

In total, the National Guard said 7,123 soldiers and airmen were activated to support local law enforcement in "protecting lives, preserving property, and ensuring the right of people to peacefully protest." The Minnesota National Guard’s 34th Military Police Company, 257th Military Police Company and National Guard Reaction Force units of the 1-151st Field Artillery Battalion and 682nd Engineer Battalion were among the first units activated.

The deployment came to an end on June 9 when the last remaining National Guard members were released from state active duty and returned home.

National guard airman speaks out

What they're saying:

"It was scary, again, very unprecedented times. Nobody knows what's going to happen next," recalled Elizabeth Preda, who deployed with the Minnesota National Guard’s Duluth-based 148th Fighter Wing.

Preda was just 19 years old and said she had recently completed her basic training after joining the National Guard straight out of high school.

"People ask you, ‘Like what did you do in your military career?’ And that is kind of like my go-to answer is, welp, ‘Do you remember what happened with George Floyd in 2020?’ I was part of that."

Like many that week in 2020, she and her fellow citizen soldiers were watching the civil unrest escalate in the Twin Cities as calls to deploy the Minnesota National Guard grew louder and louder.

She remembered telling her boss at the time, if the call comes, she had to go. She said, every member of her unit was given two hours to mobilize at their Duluth armory as soon as they received their activation orders.

"I was telling my boss at work, ‘this is going to happen and when it happens, I need to leave.’ No ifs, ands, or buts."

Once the official call came, Preda’s security forces squadron deployed to Saint Paul. They were armed, and had a mission to protect the Capitol from what the FBI said at the time was a credible threat while also protecting the rights of peaceful protesters who gathered on the Capitol grounds.

Five years later, Preda still wonders whether they should have deployed sooner given the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages that had already been done, particularly in Minneapolis. 

"I feel it took a little bit too long," Preda told FOX 9. "That's what I feel like. We could have been down there two days prior. But since it had never happened, maybe there might not have been a right time to do it."

Debate continues about deployment timing

Dig deeper:

Now five years later, some still question the decision-making and timing of the Guard’s activation, coming too late to help with security including at the now abandoned and gutted 3rd Precinct police headquarters in south Minneapolis. 

City and state after-action assessment reports ultimately gave the Minnesota National Guard high marks for its efforts protecting critical infrastructure and human life despite a lack of overall training and experience in handling a large-scale disturbance for an extended period of time.

But those reports singled out poor communication and unfamiliarity, particularly with Minneapolis city leaders in requesting the guard’s assistance that caused critical delays in approval and deployment of resources.

Former state incident commander responds

The other side:

"The Guard got called in as soon as they could," stated Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges.

In 2020, Hodges served as the Department of Public Safety’s Assistant Commissioner. He took over the statewide incident command from the city of Minneapolis after the events of May 28, 2020 that included angry demonstrators setting the 3rd Precinct on fire.

"One of the things that was frustrating to me, is people think you just snap your finger and the Guard shows up. It doesn't happen that way," explained Hodges.

Hodges said the Minnesota National Guard had very few soldiers specifically trained to handle the situation on the ground. And complicating the issue further, many of the citizen soldiers were also local members of law enforcement.

"So, are we going to have police officers do Guard duty or are we going to use them to do their regular police job function that we need at the time?" asked Hodges. "So, the Guard did get mobilized as quick as it could."

Minnesota National Guard, former leader decline interview

Local perspective:

The Minnesota National Guard and its leader at the time both declined FOX 9 interview requests for our reporting on the deployment and the lessons learned five years later.

In addition to the Floyd-related riots, soldiers and airmen were also called upon for security needs around former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial and to assist law enforcement with unrest following the deadly traffic stop police shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center as well as another volatile incident in downtown Minneapolis. All of those deployments and mobilizations occurred within a year time span during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After George FloydDeath of George FloydMinneapolis