San Diego-Area Neighborhoods Clean Up Following Weekend of Violent Protests

Speaker 1: 00:00 Governor Gavin Newsom used his frequent platform to give Covin 19 updates to address the statewide protests over the death of George Floyd. He says, white Americans have to be accountable for the institutions that perpetuate racism. Speaker 2: 00:15 The black community is not responsible for what's happening in this country right now. We are. We are. Our institutions are responsible. We are accountable to this moment. Let's just call that out. Speaker 1: 00:33 He says, society has to ask itself what is going to do fundamentally to promote change for the longterm because he says, as we are seeing today in the streets, people have lost patients Speaker 1: 00:49 in San Diego. Protest broke out around the County, primarily in Lamesa and downtown San Diego. Estimates of the size of these protests run from about 500 people in Lamesa to over a thousand downtown demonstrate is chanted, carried signs, blocked sections of freeways and knelt down in the street to peacefully protest the death of George Floyd and incidents of police brutality around the nation after dark on Saturday and Sunday. Some vandals and looters also took to the streets, smashing windows, setting fires, and stealing. KPBS reporter max Rivlin. Nadler covered the protests in San Diego this weekend and he joins us now. Max, welcome to the program. Speaker 3: 01:31 Hi, good to be here. Speaker 1: 01:32 So max, how did the protest in the Mesa develop on Saturday? The protest Speaker 3: 01:37 Mesa came after a few days after a Lamesa police department officer, uh, was caught on camera repeatedly shoving a young black man outside of the Grossmont trolley station. It's unclear what happened before that confrontation between the young man and the police officer. But people were really upset about the way that the police officer treated this young black man and that it was typical of interactions between members of the black community and police officers in the area and of course in the country at large. So the protest was response to that. And not only that, of course, the death of George Floyd and other individuals across the country in recent weeks. Um, so the protest started in front of the Mesa police department at around two o'clock. There were over a thousand people there. People were taking the trolley to get there. People were driving. It was almost entirely peaceful. Almost everyone was wearing a face mask. Uh, people were handing out, going around, handing out hand sanitizer, and people were trying to space as much as they could. Speaker 1: 02:39 So was this demonstration in Lamesa and yesterday's in downtown San Diego during the day? Was it tense? Speaker 3: 02:46 There were definitely tense moments. Uh, when they first were outside of the Mullah Mesa police department on Saturday, there were no police officers. Only when they got to the aide expressway, when they got to interstate eight, did police officers from the California highway patrol begin to corral them a bit? They set up lines and they got them off of the highway within a few hours. Of course, that was shut down for a few hours, but there was no confrontations. There was nothing thrown between the protesters and the police officers. Of course, people were upset. They were yelling expletives at officers, but officers, for the most part, kept their cool ask people to keep moving. There were conversations between police officers and protesters trying to get at basically the basis of their grievances and why they're demanding change. So it was part of the much more civil protests that we're seeing across the country, which have happened earlier in the day. Um, of course that took a change later, later in the evening. Speaker 1: 03:41 Can you give us a sense of who participated in this weekend's protests? Speaker 3: 03:45 Yeah, so black lives matter San Diego actually didn't sponsor any of the protests this weekend. Um, people who were associated with black lives matter of course attended many of the protests and it was a lot of people who were coming unaffiliated who were upset over the treatment that they've been seeing of, of black people in the custody of police. And of course the lack of accountability. Um, I would say that there was a varied amount of different kinds of protest slogans of what people were saying. People were, you know, chanting things like abolish the police. Speaker 1: 04:19 What was the police response to the protestors? Speaker 3: 04:23 Both protests were peaceful for at least the first four to five hours in Lamesa on Saturday. There was no order to disperse and I saw no rocks being thrown at police officers. I saw a few water bottles, but no rocks being thrown out. Police officers who were there in front of the police department before tear gas came out flash bangs of these little rubber balls that they were shooting these other projectiles that could really do some serious damage to people. In fact, one woman was shot in the eye and then remained hospitalized. I saw the direct aftermath of that. So, um, the police response was basically to try to get this group to disperse as quickly as possible. And that took, um, something I've never seen in San Diego before, but the use of tear gas and kind of, um, uh, really kind of street warfare tactics. Speaker 1: 05:12 Now you spoke with San Diego County democratic party chair, will Rodriguez Kennedy at the protests downtown on Sunday. What was his opinion on the police's response? Speaker 3: 05:22 His opinion was that they were the ones who were kind of pushing the tension and the violent act. He told me that basically before this it had been peaceful and only when they found them cornered to things really heat up. Here's what he said. Speaker 4: 05:37 So I think the police have to completely rethink their, their tactics when it comes to dealing with these types of crowds. You know, it would have been interesting if we got down to that quarter and the police took a knee with us or something where the chief or the mayor or someone in leadership of the city actually decided to empathize with the people who are sharing their pain about black, Brown men being Speaker 2: 05:57 shot in the streets. Speaker 1: 05:59 Now the evening uprisings were different and more destructive. What happened during the night in Lamesa and in downtown San Diego? Speaker 3: 06:06 Um, in both instances you saw kind of a change over from the people who had been protesting earlier in the day to a different crowd. People who are looking forward to property destruction, taking what they wanted from stores, breaking windows. I'm not going to say there weren't people at the protest who participated in both activities, but again, just seeing who was there earlier in the day, the signs that they had, what they were wearing, what their interest was to do to bring light to police brutality, um, and demand accountability in a changing of priorities as opposed to what the people were doing later in the night. It definitely seemed that a bunch of opportunists showed up and it was fairly coordinated that people knew that property damage was going to happen, that the police weren't going to be able or were choosing not to stop people from entering these shops. And this would be a great opportunity to help themselves to some merchandise. So, um, you're looking at a confluence of factors, the confluence of protestors, people out there against police brutality, people out there for different kinds of priority from the city and its budget. And then people who were there to kind of heighten the tension and take advantage of a police department that had kind of taken a bunker mentality and had not resorted to making a ton of arrests, but instead had tried to scatter as many people as possible away from a central location. Speaker 1: 07:24 We heard from a resident in spring Valley, Mary duty, a former educator who was shocked when she walked past the burned and vandalized buildings in Lamesa on Sunday. Speaker 2: 07:34 Well, you know what? I can't, I can judge somebody else's anger, you know, or how they gonna protest, you know, so you know, it is what it is. You know, if this the way it is getting the world's attention, then that's how it's going to have to be. Speaker 1: 07:48 I've been speaking with KPBS reporter max, Revlon Nadler max, thank you so much. Thank you. Joining us now is Joshua Williams who attended Sunday's protest in downtown San Diego. Thanks for being here. Joshua, Speaker 5: 08:07 you for having me. Speaker 1: 08:08 Well, paint a scene for us. Where were you and what was yesterday's protest like for you? Speaker 5: 08:13 So this is definitely first and foremost on the front lines. Fortunately, I was able to take part in a hundred organization and planning it. Um, and it was, it was a peaceful protest. There's a lot of individual who showed up from all different backgrounds and some of the identities for the cause and then justice is that we are seeing every day here, um, over the, over the past month and over the past years and decades. Actually, Speaker 1: 08:37 I understand that you spoke at the protest yesterday. What, what was your main message? Speaker 5: 08:41 My main message was that if the time to come together to unite and I believe to my core that it would be such a powerful message that will protesters, people in the community that are paying tax dollars to have these officer's protective service if they're out there walking with us, knowing with us during these protests, and I, and I can guarantee you yesterday we were marching around for five hours long before any type of one ruling. This actually broke out. There's a lot of people out there speaking piece, but the headlines to all, they actually really ever like showcases the writing and the destruction, which usually comes from after a aggravation that has occurred from both sides, but also a lot of times law enforcement does aggravate that situation. Um, whether, I don't know if it's pride or whatever it is, and then to be out there on these and witnessing this firsthand on your knees saying you're having a people protest with their hands up, then have tear gas come out. Speaker 5: 09:37 It's not okay. There was one other point in the demonstration where legitimately I had everybody know down and have a moment of silence and we were trying to figure out where, where's the next place that we wanted to walk, whether or not we're going to take over the freeway to really make our statement be heard or not. And you can see that the law enforcement, her mom was moments and then they lined up next to, you know, this SWAT teams, the people out with, right. Gears lining up to rattle the situation of a peaceful protest, a peaceful March. Speaker 6: 10:06 What would you say, Joshua, to police who are attempting to assess whether something is a threat or not and how to respond? Speaker 5: 10:14 I think the best way I can describe and answer that question is that starting in grammar school, you're taught ways to diffuse the situation without force. And so my expectation one for myself is very high in my, my expectations with law enforcement is even higher, which it should be because they're supposedly supposed to be trained to diffuse a situation safely without force. Speaker 6: 10:37 Joshua, you said that it's time to act. So what kind of action are you looking for from San Diego leaders? Speaker 5: 10:46 First and foremost, it's the accountability of officers and really kind of given that back to the community since officer here to protect and serve. We need to be able to hold them accountable when they're not doing it in the right under the right pretenses, you know? And so I think there's a lot of ignorance that could be out there right now because that people might not be agitated on, you know, the proper channels to go through. So I would love to see community, all this partaking in community halls to really educate the people on how to change these laws, how to get the proper officials elected to really speak our voice. You know, we can't just assume that everybody knows how this world works, you know? And then we're out here and not able to really see the change that we want. And so I know there's a couple of different channels and avenues that we actually have to go, but I almost, I would love to put it on city officials because I know me sitting in a meeting for my job, you know, being one of the only black representatives in that space, it's hard to really kind of speak up on the things that you're seeing because you want to maintain that professionalism. Speaker 5: 11:47 But when you're an elected official, it's your job. It's your duty to speak for all people, all of your citizens. And so that's when it can easily start with them by hosting a tangible town hall to where you actually ready to put in the work to change the structures and the systems that are allowing this type of just to send her every single day. Speaker 6: 12:05 And Joshua, you know, you're saying that you're not out there for violence and I hear you. Can you put into words what you're out there? Why are you out there? Speaker 5: 12:15 I'm out there to give a platform and help be a voice for those who feel like they can't speak up. I'm not here to directly speak for anyone. I'm here to speak my own piece. But at the same time there's a lot of individuals that don't know how to answer that question or their message could be distorted. But I said there's other, other, those other individuals who are fed up. And so you one of the first and foremost you have to acknowledge that I think this country all too often are taught to internalize their drama, not to speak up on their experience because it's too much of a crucial conversation. We can no longer be afraid to have these crucial conversations, or we're going to allow it to build up to the point. You're going to be back into the corner and it just explodes and that's, nobody wants that. Speaker 6: 12:58 Joshua, thank you so much. Speaker 5: 13:00 Thank you as well. I really appreciate your time. Speaker 6: 13:02 I've been speaking to Joshua Williams, who participated in Sunday's protest in downtown San Diego concerning the death of George Floyd, San Diego police chief David [inaudible] tweeted, quote, the San Diego police department expresses its sincere condolences to the family of George Floyd. Our profession must do better. We will continue to work tirelessly to build trust, establish clear policies, ensure consistent training, and maintain open and honest dialogue with our communities. KPBS also contacted the Lamesa police for an interview regarding this weekend's protest and did not hear back from the department in time for today's program.