Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz urged calm and peaceful protests following the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by a federal ICE agent. Tensions have risen statewide as demonstrations continue in response to the incident. Walz said Minnesota authorities have been denied a role in the investigation, now led by the FBI. “Minnesota must be part of this investigation,” the governor stressed.
Walz accused the Trump administration of sidelining the state from the probe. He warned that excluding Minnesota undermines public trust and confidence in the outcome. Walz said many residents fear the process will not be fair or transparent.
00:00We've also spent a lot of time talking last 24 hours about accountability.
00:04That means no function of government operates with impunity. It means when someone's in a
00:09position of authority and they commit any act that impacts our people, there has to be another place
00:19to turn to get justice. Checks and balances. Basic idea, the center of the formation of our country.
00:26It's the only measure that protects us from the abuse of government or federal overreach
00:33or tyrannical government. Yesterday, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the BCA, spent the
00:39day yesterday attempting to get that accountability. We have learned that the Trump administration has
00:44now denied the state that ability to participate in the investigation. And I just want to make this
00:49as clear as possible to everyone. Minnesota must be part of this investigation.
00:56These are nonpartisan career professionals that have spent years building the trust of the community.
01:04There's a BCA force investigations unit that was created by the legislature, by the people of
01:11Minnesota, to provide an independent, consistent, and trusted mechanism for investigating the use of
01:18force incidents involving law enforcement officers. Minnesota has seen our share of these. And what
01:24you've seen is, and I have witnessed it during my time, that these professionals have risen to the moment.
01:30They are trusted by people. People who are not by inclination trusting of law enforcement or government
01:37have come to see the professionals at the BCA as true arbitrators that can get them justice.
01:44The unit is the result of years of scrutiny, public engagement, and bipartisan legislative action.
01:53Minnesotans have made it clear time and again they expect transparency through this process where a
01:58police officer uses deadly force. The BCA Commissioner, Superintendent Evans, have earned that trust by
02:06delivering on that expectation. I think it's clear to everyone as they saw this that it feels now that Minnesota has been taken out of the investigation.
02:22It feels very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome. And I say that only because
02:30people in positions of power have already passed judgment from the president to the vice president
02:39to Kristi Noem have stood and told you things that are verifiably false, verifiably inaccurate.
02:47They have determined the character of a 37-year-old mom that they didn't even know don't know.
02:54They've determined that the actions are done. I don't know. I've not used inflammatory terms of what happened.
03:01I've asked us to find the answers. The only way we find the answers is a thorough investigation
03:08by non-partisan professionals. We've delivered that. We've been able to do it. We've earned the trust.
03:15And when I say that, the trust of BCA, and I tell Minnesotans the trust of law enforcement here.
03:21Everyone knows globally, certainly here, that George Floyd, who was murdered a few blocks from this site,
03:29tore at the soul of who we were. But we healed. We built back trust.
03:34Chief Brian O'Hara came in and took one of the most difficult jobs in America of building back trust in
03:39the police force in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. And he's earned that and
03:44he's level and he's fair and he's asking for that. And so Minnesotans, I will continue to press
03:52that we be part of the investigation, that we do the investigation so that Minnesotans can trust what
03:58the outcome is. I don't have a predetermined notion. Yes, I saw the video. Yes, I saw that,
04:05but a thorough investigation will see what happened before that. It will take all factors in and it
04:10will come up with a fair and just conclusion. And we will accept that. Very, very difficult for
04:16Minnesotans to think in any way this is going to be fair when Kristi Noem was judge, jury and basically
04:22executioner yesterday. That's very, very difficult to think that they were going to be fair.
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