Photo by Deb Gau Alpha News reporter Liz Collin addressed the crowd at the Lyon County Republicans’ fall banquet on Monday. Collin spoke about her film “The Fall of Minneapolis.”

MARSHALL — The Lyon County Republicans’ annual fall banquet drew a large crowd Monday night, as area residents gathered to hear conservative reporter Liz Collin speak. Event organizers said around 350 seats were filled, as Collin talked about her 2023 documentary, “The Fall of Minneapolis.”

Collin said she was concerned about the direction that news media and the state of Minnesota were headed in since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“It really is truly tragic, after kind of seeing the writing on the wall after May 25, 2020, to where we are today,” she said.

State Sen. Gary Dahms and Rep. Chris Swedzinski also spoke at the banquet, calling on area residents to get out the vote.

“It’s great to see such a wonderful crowd, and I hope we can carry all this enthusiasm into November 5,” said Dahms, R-Redwood Falls.

Collin, a former WCCO news reporter and anchor who is now a reporter with the conservative Alpha News website, gave the banquet’s keynote speech. She spoke about “The Fall of Minneapolis,” and also answered audience questions along with her husband, former Minneapolis police union president Bob Kroll.

Collin said media coverage began to change in her last few years with WCCO, and especially after Floyd’s death.

“It felt more like repeating propaganda, and I was really bothered by this. But I had never seen it so up close and personal until May 25, 2020, happened,” she said.

“We knew that there was so much more to this (story) that we were not telling the public, and that’s how I started with my book,” Collin said.

Collin wrote a book, “They’re Lying: The Media, the Left and the Death of George Floyd,” and produced a documentary, “The Fall of Minneapolis,” focusing on Floyd’s death, subsequent riots in Minneapolis, and the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was convicted in 2021.

Collin told area residents that Floyd’s autopsy found drugs including fentanyl in his system, and other health problems.

“More than anything, he had a bad heart. Cardiopulmonary arrest is the actual reason for his death,” Collin said. “But yet, we’re led to believe that this is the most racist police incident in our history, and we’re all paying the consequences of those lies to this day.”

Collin also claimed that the media narrative around Floyd’s death didn’t include additional police body camera footage from the incident, and that two pages covering restraint techniques in the Minneapolis Police training manual were taken offline after the incident.

“I also thought it was strange how no one seemed to care about what the officers went through,” in the rioting after Floyd’s death, when the Minneapolis third precinct police station was burned, Collin said. “You have 1,500 businesses burned or destroyed in the riots, $500 million in damage. Nobody went back to any of these cops who basically had to run for their lives … And so I really wanted to go back and interview those officers about what they went through.”

“I think to date, we have nearly 11 million views on ‘The Fall of Minneapolis,’ so thank you to all of you who have watched it,” Collin said.

One audience member asked Kroll and Collin if there was a way to change the effect of “the liberal agenda” on policing in Minnesota.

“I don’t think there is an answer, other than change the voting practices. Put people in charge that are going to let them do the job,” Kroll said.

Another audience member asked about Collin’s interview with Derek Chauvin for the documentary.

“Derek really felt like, you know, he was thrown under the bus right away,” Collin said of Chauvin’s trial. “He couldn’t believe what it turned into.”

Dahms said Collin and Kroll “brought up some really good points about what the state of Minnesota is truly in right now.”

“What’s going on out there is really surprising and amazing, and unfortunately with the (DFL) trifecta, there’s not much we can do,” Dahms said. “What it really does is, it shows us the importance of elections, and what we need to do. We need to win the House seats in Minnesota.”

If Kamala Harris wins the upcoming presidential election, “We will not be talking about a fallen Minneapolis, but a fallen America,” said Swedzinski, R-Ghent. “We have to win the Minnesota House. We have to keep Congress, and we have to take over the United States Senate and ultimately put Donald J. Trump into the White House once again.”