ST. PAUL- A Minnesota business owner who watched helplessly as his St. Paul store was destroyed during the 2020 George Floyd riots spoke to Fox News Digital about how the state, under the leadership of Governor Tim Walz, failed to protect business owners like him.

““When the rioters came here, they destroyed the mall on the left, I was in my store,” Long Her, owner of New Fashion Tailoring and Alteration in St. Paul, Minnesota, told Fox News Digital. “I witnessed and filmed everything. My girlfriend and I stayed in our store until nightfall. I wanted to go to sleep and take care of my store, but my friends said, ‘It’s too dangerous, let’s go home,’ so we went home that same night.”

Her, a Hmong immigrant, recalled feeling “afraid” for his existence as he walked home that night, but he hoped the destruction would be limited to the other side of the street.

When Her returned the next morning to check on the store he had owned for decades, he found that his worst fears had come true: the store had been looted.

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Business owner Long Her (left) of St. Paul, Minnesota, spoke to Fox News Digital about how the 2020 George Floyd riots affected him and his business. (Getty Images)

““When I came here the next day and found my business destroyed, all I could do as a man was cry,” Her told Fox News Digital through translator May Lor Xiong, a Republican running for Congress in Minnesota’s 4th Congressional District.

She said rioters broke down his security door and stole his store’s entire inventory, valued at $200,000.

“They tore down the front door and the metal bars and used pliers to destroy the metal bars. Then they came in and took everything, all the clothes, all the goods and my shop,” said Her.

Her told Fox News Digital he tried to contact police multiple times but received no response. When asked about Gov. Tim Walz’s role in the response, which took several days before the National Guard was called in, Her said if Walz were to become vice president, he hoped he had learned from his mistakes in responding to the insurrection.

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When riots broke out in Minneapolis in 2020, Governor Tim Walz waited several days before calling in the National Guard. (Getty Images)

““If he becomes vice president, he has to learn to love the people here and especially in Minnesota, despite the destruction that has occurred during his time in office,” Her said. “He could be a good person, but he also has to understand the people and the suffering they go through.”

Several people who spoke to Fox News Digital said the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have still not fully recovered from the devastating riots that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, and Her said it took about two years for his business to recover financially.

“It took me about a year and a half to two years to recover from that. During that time, a lot of people were afraid to go out and so I lost a lot of customers,” Her said. “People stopped going out to shop and so I lost a lot of money and customers.”

He went on to say that before 2020, security was “not a big issue” for business owners in the Twin Cities, but after the pandemic, “there are a lot more people shoplifting or stealing things from the store.”

“There are a lot of homeless people sleeping in this area. This makes the area very unsafe for business owners and even shoppers. That’s why we need more police officers to help us in this area to protect the businesses and the people here.”

Minneapolis is widely considered the epicenter of the movement to defund the police, and CBS News reported At the beginning of the year, it was announced that the city’s police force was 200 officers short and that the number of police officers had shrunk by 40 percent in the last four years.

““I don’t care what party they belong to,” Her said. “When it comes to policing, you should be bipartisan and put more police on the streets to help the citizens.”

Fox News Digital asked her if he feared a situation like the 2020 riots could repeat itself.

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Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, arrive at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Tuesday, August 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

““I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Her said. “I hope it won’t happen, with the lawlessness here. We love the freedom we have here. But there are also a lot of things that could happen, dangerous things that could happen to us, and we’ve already seen devastation in 2020.”

“We want to make sure we are prepared. Whoever is in office needs to make sure that when something like this happens, they send the National Guard to protect the people, the citizens and the businesses. That way we don’t have to go through this kind of destruction.”