‘Armed rednecks’ defend stores from looters amid George Floyd protests

Armed citizens in Minneapolis stood guard against looters who ravaged the city Wednesday night over the death of George Floyd.

Two bearded men with long rifles strapped to their chests told a reporter for the Minnesota Reformer outside a tobacco shop that they supported the protests but not the violence that came with them.

“Basically you see the records that cops keep. And cops are a lot less likely to try and tread on people’s rights when there’s other armed Americans with them,” one of the men says in a video taken by the reporter, Max Nesterak. “I figured it’s about damn time that some heavily armed rednecks stood with fellow citizens.”

The man said the day before they showed up armed at the original protest site where Floyd, a black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck as Floyd told him, “I can’t breathe.”