SLO police defend use of tear gas, pepper bullets in standoff with protesters
The San Luis Obispo Police Department is defending its use of tear gas and pepper bullets on a crowd of protesters Monday night, after a peaceful protest for much of the day ended in a standoff in front of the Police Station.
San Luis Obispo Police Chief Deanna Cantrell spoke Tuesday at a news conference, detailing the events that led to the decision to disperse the evening crowd.
“I want you to know — and I feel like you do know this — that we support peaceful protest here in San Luis Obispo,” she said at the conference. “No police chief, no police officer ... wants what happened yesterday to happen.”
Cantrell said that after hours of following the protest, police formed a line at Walnut and Santa Rosa streets around 6 p.m. to prevent protesters from getting back onto Highway 101 as they had the earlier in the day.
An hour after giving a dispersal order to the assembled crowd around 7 p.m., some protesters made their way through the police line to stand on the other side, Cantrell said.
That was when the order was given to use pepper bullets, shot at the ground, to try to disperse the crowd, Cantrell said. Officers also used foam bullets, she said, that may have hit people in the crowd.
After rocks, water bottles and firecrackers were thrown at officers, Cantrell said her department made the decision to use tear gas on the crowd.
“It goes out, it’s irritating to people and they disperse,” she said. “It was the safest way after many hours of negotiating with folks.”
With more protests planned throughout the week, Cantrell said she hopes to work closely with organizers to ensure they are conducted in a safe manner.
“Please use this time to express your opinions in a peaceful way,” she said.
SLO police response to march met with anger, sadness
The turn Monday night’s protest took has been met with anger, sadness and calls for unity among members of the public.
“We have the opportunity at a very pivotal moment in American history to make our city a national model for how to do it right,” community leader and San Luis Obispo resident Leola Dublin Macmillan said during the conference.
Dublin Macmillan, a steering committee member for R.A.C.E. Matters SLO County and past lecturer at Cal Poly, urged the community to find courage, strong leadership and come together in light of a global moment of awareness toward inequality.
“I encourage everyone to continue to advocate for black and brown liberation,” Dublin Macmillan said. “Continue to fight for justice. Continue to fight to dismantle structural inequality,” she said. “But make sure our actions our effective. Make sure they are strategic.“
“We can do this right. We must. We owe it to ourselves,” she added. “We have to be better than this. We are better than this. We need to show we are better than this.”
Monday’s clash also prompted a response by some officials, who called for changes within the city.
“Obviously last night was very upsetting for the community,” San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon said during the news conference.
Harmon said she planned to introduce an initiative at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting to set aside $100,000 toward “meaningful efforts to create a city in which tear gas will never be used.”
“We have heard over and over again at rallies and at marches that people of color do not feel welcome here, and it is time to step up and be willing to do the difficult and necessary work to change that,” she said.
Protest blocks Highway 101, ends with standoff
Monday’s protest followed a peaceful rally and march organized by R.A.C.E. Matters SLO County on Sunday in downtown San Luis Obispo that lasted about four hours and a peaceful protest on Sunday in Santa Maria that ended in vandalism.
The second day of large local protests against police brutality started out largely peaceful Monday afternoon, with nearly 1,500 demonstrators marching through downtown San Luis Obispo.
Another march of more than 100 protesters occurred Tuesday in Paso Robles.
“Officers and allied law enforcement agencies knelt with protesters out of honor and respect and in support of racial injustice,” city officials said in a news release.
As the march continued into the early evening, protesters headed toward Highway 101, causing police to stop traffic in both directions at 4:46 p.m.
“Fortunately, no one was injured, and high-speed traffic was detoured,” city officials said.
As the protesters circled back toward downtown, police said the marchers again approached the Highway 101 entrance, causing law enforcement to have “significant safety concerns about a return of marchers going onto Highway 101 as night approached.”
“A law enforcement line was established to prevent protesters from entering Highway 101 and they were ordered to disperse,” the San Luis Obispo Police Department said. “Law enforcement resources were stretched thin as there were various reports of planned property damage as is being experienced in other communities throughout California.”
City officials said that the protest was “an unlawful assembly after it was determined that there were public safety risks.”
Cantrell added that a police line was formed at Walnut and Santa Rosa streets at 6 p.m. to both prevent the march from returning to the freeway, but also to keep paths of travel around the police station clear as officers responded to other incidents around the area.
“There were a lot of factors that went into the decision to draw the line and say, ‘You cannot get on the freeway,’” she said. “Leadership was told that they could continue to walk throughout SLO: what we are trying to do is protect you and protect the citizens in this city. All we are asking is you cannot get on the freeway and you cannot block the Police Station.”
Protesters were told to disperse with some taken into custody. According to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office log, seven protesters were arrested and booked into County Jail for unruly gatherings.
Despite assertions on social media following the incident, Cantrell denied that rubber bullets were used on the crowd, noting that the San Luis Obispo Police Department isn’t equipped with those. She did add that some 40 mm foam rounds were fired at people throwing rocks at the officers, and personnel from another law enforcement agency fired bean bag rounds.
Around 10 p.m., police responded to reports of vandalism at three businesses on Marsh Street.
Police said that four men in a white sedan used a long BB-gun to shoot out seven windows at the Shoe Palace, Central Coast Surfboards and Founders Community Bank. Two suspects were later arrested.
City police chief: Social media warned rally wouldn’t be peaceful
On Tuesday, Cantrell said that the city has safely coordinated numerous protests in recent years, including Sunday’s “amazing event.”
“We have protests all the time in San Luis Obispo that have been fantastic,” Cantrell said. “We’ve had protests about injustice and tolerance and racism and human rights, and those protests have been amazing.”
Cantrell said a large component of the success of those events is the people involved.
The police chief said she became aware of plans for a Monday protest on Sunday afternoon, but it was unclear if there were leaders organizing the event.
Seeing posts on Facebook and Instagram that weren’t attached to any specific groups such as R.A.C.E. Matters SLO County or the local chapter of the NAACP, the San Luis Obispo Police Department worked with community leaders to help the organizers plan a successful event, Cantrell said.
Cantrell said several social media posts warned that the event would not be peaceful, suggesting violence could come.
“We had many warnings about looting,” Cantrell said. “We saw many posts warning the protest would not be peaceful, specifically there was one in particular saying ‘it was time for aggressive and violent demonstration.’”
Cantrell said the department’s top priority is public health and safety, including protecting lives. She said she feared that a driver on Highway 101 could run over a demonstrator, adding that she encouraged marching throughout the city — just not on the freeway.
“This mission has never been more difficult, but it never has been more important to partner together to face today’s societal issues,” Cantrell said.
Dublin Macmillan said Tuesday that “now is the time” to do the hard work and strategize to bring about racial equality, and she called on white members of the San Luis Obispo community to “get together and do the heavy lifting.”
“I encourage everyone to continue to advocate for black and brown liberation and to fight for justice,” Dublin Macmillan said. “Make sure actions are strategic ... It’s hard work. It’s soul-crushing work. It took a horrifying murder that many of us watched to start a national conversation that is long overdue.”
Anti-racism rally planned at SLO County courthouse
NAACP San Luis Obispo County announced it would hold a nonviolent Action Rally at 5 p.m. Thursday at the San Luis Obispo County courthouse.
That event, co-hosted by R.A.C.E. Matters and the Cal Poly Black Faculty, is one of four simultaneous events happening around the Central Coast. For more information, visit www.naacpslocty.org.
Demonstrators throughout the country have been organizing anti-racism marches and protests since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25
Videos show a Minneapolis police officer pinning Floyd, a black man, with his knees on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. In at least one of the videos, Floyd can be heard saying “I can’t breathe.” He died at the hospital a short time later.
The Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd, Derek Chauvin, has since been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Three other officers who were present during the incident were also fired.
With more protests possible throughout the week, San Luis Obispo City Manager Derek Johnson said he will observe the climate in the city into Tuesday night before determining if he should declare a curfew, as other cities around California have done.
“The city of San Luis Obispo will continue to reaffirm the rights and values of peaceful, thoughtful, meaningful protest as a way to share our feelings about issues and events,” he said during the conference. “In solidarity and to bring comfort to our community during a difficult time, we stand here together and remind everyone that we are strong, we are resilient, we are compassionate and we are San Luis Obispo.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 12:32 PM.
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