SLO protesters return to rally outside Police Station, speak out for racial justice
About 100 protesters gathered Tuesday afternoon outside of the San Luis Obispo Police Department to continue demonstrating in support of racial justice.
A small group marched from Mitchell Park downtown to the Police Department at the corner of Santa Rosa and Walnut streets.
By about 6 p.m., the crowd continued to grow at the intersection, where some protesters described the events of Monday’s rally that ended in police use of tear gas and pellets to disperse a crowd that was blocking Santa Rosa, and earlier had marched onto Highway 101.
“It was traumatizing,” said Stephan Trimm, SLO resident and a Cuesta student, who returned Tuesday to the scene of the confrontation. “I won’t forget it until the day I die. I was there the entire day and it seemed police increased the intensity and escalated the situation each step of the way. None of us had weapons, and they came out militarized and came at us.”
SLO resident Oliver Marble, who attended Tuesday’s protest but not Monday’s, said he has felt discrimination in his life — he has a black parent and a white parent — but he thinks the demonstrations can be channeled to create change.
“I can definitely feel the tension right now,” Marble said. “I feel like everyone is kind of angry, but if we can morph that energy into something more positive, if we sit down and talk, and say how can we change this, the light can come and we can cast out the darkness.”
SLO police chief explains decisions
SLO officials, including Police Chief Deanna Cantrell and Mayor Heidi Harmon, held a press conference Tuesday to address the sequence of events and decision-making process a day earlier.
Cantrell said police — joined by other local forces totaling about 130 officers — became concerned that the crowd could march again on Highway 101, as it did earlier in the day Monday, and thereby create a safety risk. They were also blocking the city police station.
She also said the authorities had a limited force due to resources from partner agencies being pulled to Los Angeles and Sacramento.
And she noted that officers were pelted with water bottles, rocks and firecrackers after telling the crowd to disperse. The protest lasted more than six hours.
Some of the force wore riot gear, which ratcheted up the tension, protesters said.
“It’s a delicate balance — the riot gear,” Cantrell said. “We know that visually it’s inciteful to people that are protesting. We wait until the last minute, but the problem is, as seen you’ve seen in many other cities, you’ve seen lots of law enforcement, even one of the horses that got hit by a brick, the injuries that are being sustained by people from things that are being thrown.”
Cantrell said the riot gear was worn to prevent those types of injuries.
“Do you wait until one of you is hit, which I know for my staff, none of them would like to volunteer to be the first one to be struck by something before they’ve donned their gear, or at the tipping point when you think this could get violent, do you don that gear then?” Cantrell said.
“The best we can do is to don it at the very tipping point where we think that we’re going to need it, and we understand the impact it has on protesters, but we also have to be safe ourselves. We can’t provide for public safety when there’s not enough of us to provide it.”
Protesters share perspective
Protester Connor Torres, who attended the marches both days, said the group on Monday, by early evening, had thinned to a small enough number that it could not reasonably overwhelm police. He said that earlier in the day, there were divisions within the demonstration group about whether to enter the freeway, and he opposed the idea. But those in support won out.
Later in the evening, the demonstrators positioned themselves facing the officers on Santa Rosa near the station, and some refused to budge after being told to disperse.
“They were pushing us back and we literally had no time to react when they threw the tear gas at us,” Torres said. “I didn’t see anything get thrown at them until they came at us.”
SLO resident Able Moss, another Cuesta student, said he was blasted by the tear gas, which made it hard to breathe. But Moss said the protest is important because “every city has to be unified” for there to be change, so that more black Americans like George Floyd — the man who died in police custody in Minneapolis — don’t die.
Trimm said he was bothered that some police didn’t appear to have their body camera devices turned on, which he said light up when they’re on.
“I heard one officer say that he didn’t charge his up,” Trimm said.
Cantrell said the department would follow its body camera policies when it came to releasing any footage of Monday’s events.
Trimm said Tuesday’s rally was likely much smaller than Monday’s event, which grew to about 1,500 at its height, because people were mentally exhausted.
“Many people likely needed a day to themselves to regroup, which I totally understand,” Trimm said.
The NAACP will hold a demonstration Thursday at 5 p.m. at the San Luis Obispo County courthouse.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 8:12 PM.
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