That's not an honest way to characterize what he said.
"The presence you see on the street, don't react to them the way you might react to the Minneapolis Police Department. It's not the same group. They have different leadership, different authority, and their job is to try to bring peace and calm back again. Please remember that this is not the group that you associate with unfair conduct."
Ellison isn't telling them to blame anyone. He knows they already blame the police and he's saying don't add the NG to that.
Why try to stir things up more?
Yeah, thanks for this; I got the same thing. But I’m also seeing this as a warning to the rioters: the NG has a diffferent sets of rules than the cops, and those rules can get people dead, so leave the NG out of it.