Sunday, May 31, 2020

Were Minneapolis Rioters Locals Or Imports?

The mayor of Minneapolis initially claimed that everyone arrested during the recent rioting was from outside the area, which would be a spectacular claim if true. Unfortunately, it turned out this was not the case, something the local Fox affiliate discovered when they looked at the Hennepin County jail log:
Of the 45 people arrested for rioting, unlawful assembly, stolen property, burglary or robbery on May 29 and May 30 so far, 38 had Minnesota addresses, according to publicly available jail records reviewed by FOX 9.
I did my own look at the numbers, and the Fox 9 figures check out. Miscommunication? Wishcasting? Who knows, but quite a pratfall to have to walk that back. I had thought at first maybe outsiders were being routed to other jails, but the about-face indicates the initial reports were wrong all along.

Update 2020-06-01: Churning some more numbers from the data set I picked up yesterday:
  • Of the 74 people arrested on riot-related charges (as set out in the Fox 9 criteria), 63 were from Minnesota.
  • Of those 63 Gopher Staters, 36 were from the Twin Cities, but 27 — nearly half — were from other towns. Violence tourism is apparently a Thing.

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