Granted, the National Guard was only stationed downtown for the majority of it, and then after Daunte Wright was killed they sent more in to the major streets in town, but it didn't seem to make any difference one way or the other.
I know most local business owners were happy to see them, but personally I felt a little uncomfortable seeing Humvees and armed soldiers at the end of my block every night.

They were in Uptown, Lake and Lyndale and even at 44th and Nicollet. They apparently guarding gas stations, since many were set on fire last summer.

A lot of businesses were boarded up, and that was creepy, too. The NG presence might have prevented some disturbance, but the protests were largely peaceful - as they mostly were last summer as well, at least until the right-wing agents provocateurs began starting fires. My fear was that those assholes would show up again, and maybe the NG was a deterrent.

were pretty much warranted. The issue is why the fact that the provocateurs who were, as you mentioned, agents or actual RWNJs (Right Wing Nut Jobs) and yet were not mentioned as such more in the media. The fact that these were RWNJs doing the real damage always seemed like it was mentioned after the fact, or once the real proceedings were started against the person and there was no way to deny their very public political and social positions those stories were back on page 23 or something. One might think the fact of their origin was somehow not worthy of mention to the mainstream media once that origin starts to reflect on their owners in any way...