US Democratic Representative Maxine Waters requested a police escort during her visit to Minnesota last weekend, when she urged protesters to "get more confrontational” in the wake of the fatal police shooting of a young black man, Daunte Wright, Fox News reported on Monday.
Travel logs obtained by Townhall editor Katie Pavlich showed that Waters requested to be accompanied by US Capitol police on Saturday while she was flying from Dulles International Airport to Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport.
Waters came under criticism after she called on Minnesota protesters to "stay in the street" and ignore curfews imposed by local authorities following unrest that was sparked by Wright's killing.
“We've got to stay in the street and we've got to get more active, we've got to get more confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business,” she said.
Waters, who arrived in Minnesota amid the ongoing trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with murder and manslaughter over the death of another African-American man, George Floyd, in police custody in May 2020, also told protesters it would be unacceptable for the ex-officer to be acquitted of murdering Floyd.
Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, who is overseeing the Chauvin trial, denounced Waters' statements, saying she might've given the defence grounds for appeal in the event of his conviction.
"I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that's disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function," Cahill said after dismissing jurors from the courtroom.
“I think if they want to give their opinion they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution to respect a co-equal branch of government. Their failure to do so, I think, is abhorrent, but I don’t think it’s prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury,” he said, as cited by the New York Post.
A number of Republican lawmakers also accused Waters of inciting violence, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said that she used “dangerous rhetoric”.
“If this were reversed, if this was said by a Republican, you know that the majority in this chamber would move to strip that representative of their committees, and possibly to expel them from Congress,” representative Lisa McClain said on Monday.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in turn, claimed on Monday that Waters doesn’t need to apologise for her weekend remarks as she "talked about confrontation in the manner of the civil rights movement".
Protests in the US state of Minnesota started on 11 April, when 20-year-old Daunte Wright, who had an outstanding arrest warrant, was pulled over by a police officer and fatally shot during the traffic stop and attempted arrest. The policewoman claimed to have mistaken her handgun for a Taser.