Garfield resident Andrew Raub was enjoying a regular Sunday night with his wife Gabriella Saavedra when they suddenly started to hear the sounds of helicopters flying overhead. After going outside to his front yard, he said he saw masses of police SUVs and caravans pushing protesters out of downtown and into the neighborhood.
“The protesters had moved in one direction but the police had started to take over the whole neighborhood,” Raub said. “They just started deploying over the entire neighborhood. It was pretty evident that the police had taken over our neighborhood but no one had really known what was going on.”
Raub’s wife Gabriella Saavedra said they couldn’t see the police in the beginning, but around 9 p.m. they saw protesters marching peacefully, and a few minutes later, overtaken by police officers charging through the neighborhood.
“Caravans of police vehicles went down our street several times,” she said. “They totally blocked the street. No one could go in or out. They had protesters on the sidewalk that had been arrested. They descended on the neighborhood and were hunting people down.”
Police fire tear gas toward protesters shortly before 9 p.m. on Sunday, May 31, 2020. Police and protesters reached an impasse near Seventh St. and the I-10 on ramp. Protesters were eventually corralled down Roosevelt and Seventh streets toward the Garfield neighborhood, where several residents complained of violence and chaos on the part of officers. (Madeline Ackley/DD)
Garfield neighborhood residents began to express frustration with the Phoenix Police Department on Facebook after the peaceful protests taking place Sunday night were forced into the neighborhood, threatened by tear gas, rubber pellets and caravans.
Brooke Carpenter, another Garfield neighborhood resident, watched as the peaceful protest was herded into the neighborhood, where any street or exit to the downtown neighborhood was blocked off, preventing anyone from coming in or leaving.
Carpenter said after an evening full of hearing rubber bullet and tear gas firings, she started to see protesters run into the street of the neighborhood trying to get away from the swarm of police.
She watched as officers quickly followed the protesters in full riot gear, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets while pointing to residents and neighbors telling them to get inside and that they were violating curfew.
“For the most part people in the neighborhood didn’t even know there was a curfew,” Carpenter said. “There was no communication. No civil conversation at all. (The police) were ready to be aggressive.”
Carpenter said some of the officers even charged at her, going as far as slamming someone down and arresting them while Carpenter pulled some protesters to her property to protect them from the police.
“We had the right to observe what they were doing,” she said. “It felt like we were being punished for helping protesters.”
In a Facebook group for the neighborhood, other residents were appalled at the way officers treated residents on their own properties, some people even tear-gassed and arrested from their own homes.
Elizabeth Lamey posted a picture of her bruises, after she was arrested by police for sitting on her porch during curfew.
“We were taking video, giving water on our own property to those that needed it and for that they kicked our asses and tried to delete it, and throw us in jail,” Lamey posted to the group. “I never resisted. I simply stated this is my house and asked why they arrested me with no answer and no rights ahead of me.”
Raub, who is also a board member for the neighborhood association, said it was really intimidating to see cops in full riot gear marching down the street onto peaceful protesters and shooting tear gas so close to residents’ homes. But Raub said it wasn’t the protesters that were causing the chaos because they were protesting peacefully in the first place.
The day after, Raub started a Google Doc, calling for fellow neighbors and Garfield residents to document their experiences with Phoenix PD about the previous night’s handling.
“It’s very easy when something happens to take to Facebook, and if that’s where the end of it is, nothing happens,” Raub said. “People were sharing all these stories and that’s it. The story ended when the police broke up after 7th Street and I don’t want that to happen.”
Currently. Raub has eight and a half pages documenting incidents and reactions to the way Phoenix Police handled the protest.
“The aftermath of police response goes unreported, it’s important to show how unbalanced the show of force is against what was a non-violent demonstration,” he said in his Facebook post with the document. “More importantly, it’s unsaid how these shows of force affect people in the surrounding areas.”
Police arrive at the intersection of Roosevelt and Seventh streets after chasing protesters down Roosevelt toward the Garfield neighborhood around 9 p.m. Sunday, May 31, 2020. (Madeline Ackley/DD)
Cristina Chavez is also a resident of the Garfield District and blamed police for what she described as “absolute chaos” in her neighborhood last Sunday.
Chavez had attended the protests earlier in the day but returned home before the 8 p.m. curfew. She was at home when she saw protesters running through her neighborhood being pursued by police.
She noticed some young-looking protesters hiding out across the street from her home. “There’s no way they were over the age of 18,” she said.
Chavez approached them and offered to take them to their cars.
“I was just trying to provide a safety net for them, being that the cops were acting out violently.”
She sheltered three protesters in her home and drove between five and six others to their cars, maneuvering around streets that had been blocked off by police.
On her way home, she heard shouts from armed police officers who began to shoot at her car. The third and final shot shattered her rear windshield and a shell cased in a bean bag landed in the front seat close to where her friend was seated, though no one was injured.
She determined that her car was struck with a bean bag round by having the casings examined at a gun shop. Inside the beanbag round, she was told, was bird shot, which is used to hunt small animals.
While bean bag rounds are far less lethal than live bullets, they have been known to cause serious injury and, in some cases, death. A California woman attending an anti-police brutality protest on Saturday was placed in a medically-induced coma after she was shot by what appeared to be a bean bag round, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. She is now recovering.
Chavez said she believed the police used excessive force against the protesters and herself. “They’re clearly abusing whatever power was given to them,” she said.
“We need to defund (the Phoenix police department) and we need to start redirecting that money into protecting and strengthening and developing our communities.”
The Phoenix Police Department spokesperson did not immediately issue a response to Downtown Devil’s questions, but Sgt. Maggie Cox, a Phoenix PD spokesperson told the Arizona Republic, “Our priority is the safety of the community members… as the protesters entered the residential area and remained after the curfew, police officers responded to disperse those crowds with the intent to protect and prevent our neighborhoods from criminal activity.”
Contact the reporters at smedwar7@asu.edu and mkackley@asu.edu.
Sara Edwards was the executive editor of Downtown Devil. She is a graduate student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Sara has additional bylines in Phoenix New Times, West Valley View, L.A. Downtown News and Boardwalk Times.
Sara is also the co-secretary for the Multicultural Student Journalists Coalition.
Madeline is the community editor for Downtown Devil and is a senior studying at the Walter Cronkite School. She is a local freelance journalist who primarily covers politics, policing, immigration and business. In 2019, she won first place in her category in the national SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards for her reporting on deported veterans in Tijuana, Mexico with Cronkite News.
