“I would say… those first days when there were riots…I could smell the burning tyres…that was a very real thing…And I kept the windows open for as long I could because I felt that was such a touchstone of what was happening,” Gwen Walz could be heard saying in the now viral video.
As protests spiraled following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police, Tim Walz delayed sending the National Guard to take control of the situation — by three days allowing the city to burn. The action was defended by the governor who said the administration did the best it could.
“Governor Walz had the ability and duty to use force and law enforcement to stop criminal violence, but he did not,” said a 2020 Minnesota Senate report on the riots, published at a time when Republicans controlled that chamber. “Governor Walz was not willing to do what was necessary to stop the rioting right away because he was having a philosophical debate about whether the use of force should be used to stop violence.”
Gwen Walz is the first lady of Minnesota, a teacher like Tim was before entering politics. Gwen has taught in public, alternative and migrant schools, as well as prisons. She met Tim in a school in Nebraska where both of them were teaching. They got married in 1994. Gwen was born in Glencoe, Minnesota, and grew up in the western part of the state. Both her parents were teachers and small-business owners. Walz was educated at Gustavus Adolphus College and Minnesota State University.
Source : Times of India
