Newly Surfaced Video Shows Law Enforcement Officers Slashing Tires At Minneapolis Protests

Newly surfaced video appears to confirm earlier reports that Minneapolis protesters, reporters, and even medics had had their car tires slashed by law enforcement officers.

On May 31, TV producer Andrew Kimmel tweeted a video showing his rental car along with at least 10 others in a K-Mart parking lot with their tires slashed. “Minneapolis Police slashed every tire on my rental car, as well as every tire of every car in this parking lot,” Kimmel tweeted.

Minneapolis Police slashed every tire on my rental car, as well as every tire of every car in this parking lot. pic.twitter.com/lchFplYQ0n

— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) May 31, 2020

Several witnesses added to Kimmel’s claim at the time that law enforcement officers had carried out the act.

And now, thanks to Mother Jones, a newly surfaced video appears to corroborate their claims. The video footage shows a group of state troopers and county police deliberately slashing tires at a highway overpass on May 31.

Neither the Minnesota State Patrol nor the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office responded to requests from Mother Jones. The Minneapolis Police Department and Minnesota National Guard denied involvement.

Slate reports that the gray car in the video is the “one that Luke Mogelson, a writer for The New Yorker, had rented to cover the protests. When the protests last Sunday turned violent as officers fired tear gas on peaceful protesters who were out after curfew, Mogelson went to check on his car. One officer told him he would tell his colleagues that the car was a press car. When he later went to get his car, officers told him about the slashed tires. ‘They were laughing,’ Mogelson told Mother Jones. ‘They had grins on their faces.’ ”

Mogelson was among many journalists who came back to flat tires after a night of covering protests.

‼️THE POLICE SLASHED THIS TRUCKS TIRES‼️ all the protestors left the Kmart area as soon as they got closer. #MinneapolisRiot pic.twitter.com/eTGrHUUZLA

— brandi (@brandiiimariiie) May 31, 2020

Radio-Canada journalists covering the protests in Minneapolis had their tires slashed. Witnesses told them police did it. https://t.co/9YwfcClMoq

— Sean Craig (@sdbcraig) May 31, 2020

Cops in Minneapolis shot my friend, the photographer @philip_nyc, in the chest, with a rubber bullet, causing bruising over his heart. They also slashed his tires.

Follow his work here: https://t.co/xF8CtHXE8l pic.twitter.com/JzOd2GogKY

— Ben Taub (@bentaub91) June 2, 2020

“We’re so busy, it’s just unbelievable,” said a tow truck driver in an interview from the K-Mart parking lot with Kimmel, formerly the head of BuzzFeed’s video team.

The tow truck driver said four CNN vehicles had their tires slashed in the same parking lot.

The towing company had received “call after call after call.” Asked whose cars were being towed, the tow truck driver said, “Everybody. Medics over there. News crews. Random people that were just here to protest and—tires slashed.”

This tow truck driver has been here all day. He later told me four @CNN vehicles had their tires slashed here as well. There was an entire row of press vehicles that all had to be towed. pic.twitter.com/LG40yxlrde

— Andrew Kimmel (@andrewkimmel) May 31, 2020