Man gets 100 months in prison for damage in protest

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge has sentenced a St. Paul man to more than eight years in prison for burning, looting and damaging businesses during a 2020 protest against police brutality in Minneapolis.

U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz sentenced 32-year-old Victor Devon Edwards on Wednesday to 100 months in prison and two years of supervised. A jury convicted Edwards this past August of one count of riot and one count of arson.

According to prosecutors, Edwards drove to downtown Minneapolis on Aug. 26, 2020, to join a crowd that was protesting after false rumors surfaced that police had killed a man. Surveillance video shows the man shot himself but anger was still running high over George Floyd’s death three months earlier and the gathering descended into chaos. More than 130 people were arrested.

According to prosecutors, surveillance video shows Edwards looting a department store, helped fuel a fire inside Target’s headquarters building that caused nearly a $1 million in damage and entered other closed stores and businesses. He also took orders from friends for it

Read more: https://www.southernminn.com/faribault_daily_news/news/state/article_575c5199-bee5-50df-b3b1-ff8642b9bd12.html