'We were abandoned': Pentagon emails show National Guard was ready to deploy before 2020 Minneapolis protests

Pentagon emails in the hours before protests in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis turned destructive show leaders were warned the situation could turn deadly and that the Minnesota National Guard was ready to help.

"We were abandoned," a local government official said of the response to the protests in a Wilder Research report ordered by the state in the aftermath of the protests, according to a Military.com report Sunday. "By the time the National Guard even came, most everything had quieted down."

Emails obtained by the Minneapolis Star Tribune show that on the morning of May 28, 2020, just days after the death of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, U.S. Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel warned top Pentagon leaders that the situation in the city was likely to become dire. Minneapolis police expected roughly 75,000 protesters to descend on the city the weekend after Floyd's death, which had already sparked mass outrage.

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