While marches weaved through the streets of downtown Phoenix, another riot caught the attention of local legislatures: rioting and looting at the Scottsdale Fashion Square, which hit the news as Phoenix protestors were outside the Talking Stick Resort.
In response to this and the protests downtown, Governor Doug Ducey released several statements in support of law enforcement. In a thread on Twitter, he announced the following:
“I want to commend our law enforcement officers on their work last night… The Arizona national guard also played a critical role in this response. One thing is clear: The more aggressive approach downtown was needed, and it worked. Now, more needs to be done, in more places around the state, to protect law and order and public safety.”
Sunday afternoon, Ducey announced an 8 p.m. curfew for the rest of the week.
The protest
A man in a white t-shirt stood above a sea of faces after hopping up on a wall outside the Sandra Day O’Connor Courthouse on Jefferson Street holding a megaphone speaker. A large gathering of protestors stopped their march through Phoenix to hear him speak.
“I am tired of seeing my black brothers and sisters needlessly dying. I’m angry, like all of you,” he said. “Look at us. You cannot see the end of us.”
Saturday marked the third night of protests in Phoenix, and at 10:15 p.m. demonstrators who were calling for justice in cases of police brutality had already been on the march for almost three hours. From the Arizona State Capitol to City Hall or looping around the downtown area between 7th Street and 7th Avenue, a crowd that started as a few hundred grew to well over a thousand.
In several areas, protesters would fill major intersections and stop traffic by taking a knee or sitting down. The march often occupied whole stretches of the street, and in the early night, stopped traffic could only quietly.
Except as the march turned down Grand Avenue and was met with a line of low-riders with hydraulics fashioned, pumped up and lights blinking. Spectators along the side of the street threw fists into the air and honked in support.
Along Van Buren Street, spectators parked on the street pulled bulk packs of water and Gatorade from their trunks and passed them out to the crowd, who marched in 95-degree heat.
“Look at your neighbor. Make sure they are okay,” repeated members of the crowd throughout the night, sharing water from their coolers or helping spectators pass out their donations.
A man from the march peeled off the spray-paint the wall of Sun Devil Auto. In orange letters, he scribbled, “F*** 12,” a condemnation of the police force. But though he acted quickly, his fellow protestors were just as quick to call him out.
Shouts of “Yo, dude! Knock that sh** out!” and “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?!” came from the crowd, and the culprit was chased off.
It had been the only act of vandalism for hours.
The group had convened at the courthouse, and the urge to stay peaceful came from the man in white with the megaphone.
“We have to stick together!” he insisted. “We have to stay nonviolent.”
They were preparing themselves, because their next destination was right around the corner: the Phoenix Police Department Headquarters, the site where much of the action the night before had occurred, and where the police were waiting in full force around the block.
Unlike Friday night, when protestors gathered outside the complex and assembled for hours, the standoff outside headquarters was brief. Because within a few minutes of arriving, there was a loud bang.
Like Friday night, the startling sound was presumed to be a firework. Police responded instantly, firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd, denouncing the protest as an unlawful assembly via speaker.
The protest was divided between those on 7th Avenue and those on Washington Street. To the east, where we circled, protestors had scattered. The crowd was instantly drawn thin by two lines of police sweeping Washington street in both directions.
It seemed as though the crowd had completely dispersed, until in the distance, west of the headquarters building, there was an array of fireworks.
“They all regrouped down there,” we were told, so we made our way west.
When we found the march, it was no longer a march, but a motorcade. Motorcyclists, ATVs, and Jeep Wranglers with people hanging on the sides pushed through the center of the crowd, which, as people regrouped, was as packed as ever.
The protest was on the move again, but now the night was very different than before. Fireworks were set off every couple of blocks. Windows were smashed and walls were spray-painted as the march weaved through the city streets.
Closely behind them were the police, marching in a phalanx in riot gear. Every so often, when the police caught up to the group where vandalism was occurring, they would fire flashbangs and rubber bullets.
The second main altercation of the evening occurred outside Talking Stick Resort and Arena, where protesters showed a great divide between peaceful and violent approaches.
Men and women at the front of the group began tearing down the fencing outside the arena, bouncing on the fallen gate and storming the complex. But from behind them, fellow protesters would shout at them to stop and pushed the fence back upright.
When police arrived, they made a more active advance. After setting off another round of tear gas, the line of officers flushed the crowd up Jefferson street, and protestors fled, running several blocks to 7th street.
Demonstrators at the end of the march pulled construction cones and gates into the streets, blocking the path of the police officers who followed. This continued throughout the rest of the night, an attempt to put distance between protestors and police.
The protests ended where it began – at the Arizona State Capitol, where protestors were given a 5-minute warning to disperse before police began making arrests.
Around 2:30 a.m., police advanced and arrested over 100 people on various counts of vandalism, trespassing, and unlawful assembly. It was the climax of the evening, and by 3 a.m., Phoenix was once again silent.
Contact the reporter at bmfloren@asu.edu.
