Minnesota lawmakers said violence during George Floyd protests was from 'outside' actors, but jail records show most arrests are in-state

• Minnesota lawmakers appear to have inaccurately attributed the violent protests to out-of-state agitators, even though jail records show that most of those arrested were from Minnesota.
• Gov. Tim Walz, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey all said Saturday that demonstrators had come from outside of the state to exploit the initial momentum of the protests.
• On Saturday evening, Carter walked back his statement and said he had been using inaccurate data.

Local and state lawmakers in Minnesota said Saturday that the vast majority of people taking part in the violent protests Friday night in Minneapolis over George Floyd's death were from outside the state, but jail records obtained by the local TV station KARE 11 shows the majority of arrests in the Minneapolis area were in-state.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter also said Saturday evening he had been using inaccurate data earlier that day when he said "every single protester" arrested in the area was from out of town.

"I take full responsibility for that," he told reporters.

Governor Tim Walz had said at a press conference earlier on Saturday that up to 80% of people arrested were from "outside" the state.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also echoed Walz and Carter, saying outsiders had come "to prey on everything we have built over the last several decades."

CNN reported that authorities said early Saturday about 50 people were arrested over the protests.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar also issued a warning at a Saturday afternoon press conference to Minnesota residents about outsiders piling on to the protests who are "doing it for bad reasons."

Klobuchar urged Minnesotans to "stand together, stay at home, stand together in that way."

US Attorney General William Barr took the lawmaker's conclusions a step further on Saturday, saying the peaceful protests had been hijacked by radical out of state "anarchist and far-left extremist" groups.

Barr said protestors used "Antifa-like tactics" in the demonstrations, which had been "planned, organized, and driven by anarchistic and far-left extremists." Barr's comments echoed some of President Donald Trump's claims on Twitter earlier that day, in which he said demonstrators were really "professionally managed so-called 'protesters'" who "had little to do with the memory of George Floyd."

The city clamped down on Saturday after Walz activated Minnesota's entire National Guard for the first time in the state's history to contain the protests that pushed back on the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck.