(WHDH) –Buildings in a heartbroken and angry community have been set ablaze over the last three days as Minneapolis is rocked by the death of George Floyd and the riots and looting that have followed.
7NEW’s longtime reporter Byron Barnett grew up in the city and spoke to many of his family members and friends still living there about what it is like to watch their home struggle in the midst of such chaos.
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It’s a frightening thing to watch my childhood home go up in flames.
My brother-in-law Mark Krans lives about half a mile away from the police station that was torched Thursday night.
“There’s ashes all over my car there’s ashes all over my driveway…there’s the smell of smoke,” Kranz said. “I could hear them shooting their rubber bullets, through the last couple nights.”
He said he is shocked by what he has seen and so are my other family members.
“It’s just very disheartening Byron,” my cousin Lisa Crawford said. “It’s something that I never would have thought would have happened in Minnesota, certainly Minneapolis.”
The protesters demonstrated in the Longfellow neighborhood — a middle-class community that has long been one of the most integrated neighborhoods in the city.
When I grew up there, it was one of the safest and most peaceful.
“I’m afraid to even go over in that area to see what the damage has been done,” Crawford said.
The protests have destroyed countless businesses and Crawford said the protestors who are doing the most damage appear to be from outside the neighborhood.
I asked her if this activity was out of place for Minneapolis and Crawford said, “Oh totally, it’s totally out of character. But, in the same breath, I will say that there are a lot of frustrated people. You know, years of their sons or relatives not being treated fairly by the Minneapolis police.”
“What he did was appalling as far as I’m concerned,” Krans said. “The cops standing around watching him, that was appalling. That’s my personal opinion.”
I have talked to many friends and relatives over the past couple of days and they all tell me they are glad Derek Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer seen on video kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, has been arrested.
But, they say they will not rest until the other three officers are behind bars as well.
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