George Floyd Square business owner slams Minneapolis hypocrisy: ‘These businesses got absolutely crippled’

Minneapolis is open for business, according to more than a few politicians. But the way they’re helping businesses after the ICE surge — while ignoring some of the ones ruined after the George Floyd riots — doesn’t seem like business as usual.

Edwin Reed and his attorney, Michael Healy, joined Liz Collin on her podcast.

WATCH:

Reed first spoke with Liz Collin a year ago to explain what happened to his auto detailing business in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. He’s one of eight business owners suing the city for allowing activists and gangs to essentially take over, which made operating his business almost impossible, he said.

The latest on the lawsuit against the city

Reed’s attorney, Michael Healy, explained where the case stands at this point.

“The Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court decision in a case related to Ed’s and that’s Cup Foods. The Court of Appeals recently upheld Judge Wahl’s decision from Hennepin County in that case. And we are now appealing to the Minnesota Supreme Court. That petition for review will go in the next three weeks,” he said.

Healy said no traffic could get to Reed’s business and the others for a period of more than a year.

“Those barricades stood in place and when you talk about Cup Foods, it’s a grocery store; when you talk about Ed’s business, Sincere Detailing, it needed vehicles to get there to function for his business to survive in any way, shape or form. So when the city prohibited traffic for more than a year, these businesses got absolutely crippled,” Healy commented.

Healy said there was also a documented withdrawal of police protection.

“Which turned 38th and Chicago into what one of my clients called a war zone, a number of murders and hundreds of rounds of gunfire in the year following George Floyd’s death,” Healy said.

‘I lost everything’ 

In response to immigration enforcement and Operation Metro Surge, Minneapolis businesses have now been offered access to millions of dollars in grants and city funding.

Meanwhile, business owners like Reed graduated high school in Minneapolis and he founded his business back in 2012. At one point, he had 13 employees working for him.

Reed says it’s clear the city picks and chooses who is important.

“I lost everything. I lost my employees. They’ve lost their jobs. And I built a brand and my brand has been ruined. And I had to close up my building last year in July,” he said.

“So just seeing that and hearing that when we were harmed first, I can’t even understand it,” Reed explained.

He also pointed out that George Floyd Square “looks like a war zone still to this day. It’s going on the sixth year and no one has come up with anything to even compensate us for our losses or to even try to fix the neighborhood up so that we could receive commerce, so it’s disheartening to hear that.”

In highlighting an important fact, Healy explained how “no one in the city was damaged like the business owners at 38th and Chicago. Their businesses got crippled by these roadblocks and the withdrawal of police … The police were in the rest of the city. In fact, we submitted evidence to the trial court and the Minnesota Court of Appeals that the property values at 38th and Chicago plummeted while in the rest of the city, they continued with a moderate increase.”

“So we have given evidence to the trial court and the Court of Appeals, and Mayor Frey, by the way, and it’s simply just disregarded,” Healy added. “The most-injured people in Minneapolis over the last five years [are] Ed Reed and his business, and the other eight business owners being sabotaged by the city’s conduct, destroying their businesses. Again, multi-millions going to other groups and other causes to help business owners purportedly, and yet the business owners most harmed got nothing, virtually nothing.”

Minneapolis still broken five years after George Floyd death

The lawsuit details what the business owners have witnessed in the area, including a man shot in the head and another who was found dead behind Reed’s shop wrapped in a blanket.

“Ultimately, it’s the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Frey who are responsible for all of the conduct there,” Healy said. “We’re five and a half years from Floyd’s death. The businesses have all been almost completely wiped out, and there have been no reparations made. So at the end of the day, the named defendants are responsible, not only for the transgressions that caused the businesses to get clobbered, but in the failure to take care of them when you made mistakes.”

Reed said he “documented everything that took place from the start of the death of George Floyd up until now.”

“They’ve put signs out there that they’re promoting some of the grant money that was given to those businesses to promote tours from the city. When people come into town, they’ll walk them around to the ‘Say Their Names‘ tour while our businesses are sitting here suffering. They have a memorial in the middle of the street,” he said.

“It’s unreal to believe that they can allow a graveyard site on top of a business district where people are working and doing business,” Reed continued. “It’s very distasteful for our clients to drive by there and feel scared and have to lock their doors and see all of this stuff taking place up here.”

Liz Collin

Liz Collin is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter, news anchor, and producer who cares about Minnesota. She is the producer of The Fall of Minneapolis and Minnesota v We the People documentary films, and author of the Amazon best-selling book, They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and The Death of George Floyd. Her work has prompted important state laws. Yet perhaps most of all, Liz has been giving a voice to the truth—and helping others tell their stories—for more than 20 years.

Dr. JC Chaix

Dr. JC Chaix is an editor, educator, and an expert in media studies. He wrote and directed the Alpha News documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis” and “Minnesota v We the People.”