I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd.
I find it really hard to not come to the conclusion that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
My biggest takeaway is local events translate to global action in the crowd (police or protestors). And it leads to all this misunderstanding. "What I was just standing here. Why are you pushing me?". Because jackass, a group of people 10 feet away from you threw rocks and bottles at the police. Sorry you got shoved but shit happens.
Below are my unorganized thoughts. Just wanted to get them out.
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There were like 100k people at 2:30 (maybe more I didn't count I'm just guessing). These people were mostly peaceful. The worst thing they did was chant obscenities about the police and jump on the cars of bystanders. Not the worst thing in the world but not the nicest way to protest either. I don't hold it against them.
By 6ish there were maybe 10 or 20 thousand hardcore protestors remaining. The people legitimately concerned about police brutality but not clinically-insane-enough-to-march-for-four-hours-saying-the-same-thing-to-no-one-in-particular went home.
These diehards are mostly a bunch of power tripping assholes. "Fuck 12", "ACAB", "Pigs", running up to the police line and trying to 'punk' them out. Just stupid. The weaker and frailer they are the more it seemed they had to say. They know they have all the power when they're with the crowd. Its simultaneously the most pathetic and the most terrifying thing you've ever seen because one of these cracked out weirdos is probably going to try to light your building on fire soon.
And then the fires start. Police cars, a 7-11, doesn't matter. The protestors block the street when firefighters roll up to put it out. They eventually move but I couldn't tell you why. Big shoutout to CFD for being total badasses. I wasn't about to walk out in the crowd even if I were disguised as a "protestor". They make their way to the fire, get it out ASAP and roll out before the crowd has a chance to completely engulf them. Though I never saw the bulk of the crowd leave the police lines.
I have to criticize CPD a little here. I was legitimately concerned my wife and I were going to burn to death in our apartment. I didn't have faith that the CPD could prevent someone from lighting my building on fire.
Thankfully it never came to that.
The police were completely outnumbered and were generally powerless to do anything when the crowd was in its full force. There were people with hammers breaking up the sidewalk to use chunks of debris as weapons against the police. The police just stood there unable or unwilling to prevent it.
In my mind, the police were present to A). soak up as much of the crowds rage as possible and B). prevent the really heinous shit from going down. I'm not talking murder. I'm talking burning an apartment building down with all the people inside heinous. Several murders happened behind the crowds (i.e. bad people are using the crowd as a human shield to do whatever they want). The police didn't (maybe couldn't) budge. Even if they did try to prevent it the crowd would have raged at their intrusion into "their" space.
After curfew the cops went on the offensive. The police began to march. Pushing the remaining "protestors" further and further south outside of the loop. This involved rubber bullets and I assume tear gas but I couldn't actually see this part. Along the way the rioters looted every business (aside from the Crocs store hilariously enough) from Wacker all the way to Roosevelt. I assume they looted further down but I didn't feel like walking any further through the ruins of my city.
That's basically it.