 On May 31st, 2020, thousands of people filled the streets of Athens, Georgia to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. This was one of the largest demonstrations in Athens history energized by the spirit of revolution that was sweeping the country. Poles estimate between 15 and 26 million people participated nationwide, and they were successful at achieving some of their objectives, but at a cost. Up to 30 people may have lost their lives in connection to the protests. Over 14,000 people have been arrested, mostly for low-level offenses like curfew violations. In Minneapolis, business owners claim over $500 million in property damage. Despite the protests being entirely peaceful in most areas, 32,000 National Guard troops have been activated nationwide as of June 9th. Without exaggeration, it's clear that these protests are one of the most significant events in modern American history. Today, I'm going to focus on one small part of these protests, which is the violent police overreaction here in Athens on the night of May 31st. We'll find out what really went down, what the police said about it, and how we can stop this kind of overreaction from happening in the future. First, let's take a look at the facts of what happened. On May 31st, at 5 p.m., Black organizers in town, including Commissioner Mariah Parker, called for a march for a world without cops. The protests began at the courthouse in downtown Athens. From there, they took to the streets, marching to College Square where speakers, including Mayor Kelly Gertz, stood atop the Confederate monument to address the crowd, which by this point numbered between 1,500 and 2,000 people, according to police. The protest was entirely peaceful, although at around 7.30 a small group of boogaloo extremists, armed with rifles, made a brief appearance as the protest was winding down. It's unclear what they were trying to accomplish, but this is the only time anyone reported as having seen them. By all accounts, they left the scene before dark, as did most of the crowd. But about 1-200 people stayed put hanging out around the Confederate monument, which some of them defaced with spray paint. APN examined the scene at the monument around 9 p.m., when the National Guard was already mobilizing. Most of the protesters remaining were of college or even high school age. A quick note about this footage, this is from a channel called 1990 Views, I'll link it in the description, and you really should check out the full video over on that channel. And this footage is from the downtown security cameras. It was provided by ACCPD. Around 9.40 p.m., ACC Assistant Manager DeBoro Loneham declared a state of emergency and a curfew downtown, making the gathering around the monument illegal. At that time, four different military and police agencies coordinated to surround protesters on all sides. At midnight, ACCPD gave the official order to disperse through a drone flying overhead. Some protesters left, although most stayed put, locking arms in a defensive formation as the police started to close in. Then, in the words of Chief Sprule, I made the decision to utilize gas as a final attempt to get the crowd to disperse, without having to use higher levels of force. Before police fired canisters of smoke and tear gas at protesters, no protester behaved violently towards police, although they did throw water bottles in their general direction and set off fireworks. Regardless of Sprule's wishes, the police did use high levels of force. Rubber bullets or bean bag rounds were fired at protesters, specifically those who tried to snuff out tear gas canisters or kick them back at police. At this point, remaining protesters either fled to a nearby building under construction or sat down where they were and awaited arrest. Nineteen people were arrested in total, and all, I believe, were released the next day. No weapons were found on protesters or at the scene. Let's be clear. This was an unprovoked assault on Athenians exercising their First Amendment right to assembly. While yesterday was mainly very positive, there were some elements that were dangerous and challenging. Beyond those individuals that were visible, there was an element that was not visible that was behind the scenes. And our department had very strong intelligence that after the demonstration, we needed to clear downtown for the safety of the individuals who live there and frequent there and for people's workplaces. On June 1st, ACCPD issued a press release saying that many of the protesters occupying the area around the Confederate Monument appeared to belong to a violent extremist group. This is, as you can see, a lie. At a press conference on July 31st, police changed their story on this. They now say they merely saw indications that, quote, suggested the presence of extremists, such as one protestor out of roughly 200 wearing a Hawaiian shirt. They also said they saw protesters carrying heavy backpacks into a tent at the center of the protest area. Could they be stockpiling bricks or other tools of destruction? Once police cleared the area, Chief Spruill said that they did find, quote, stacks of bricks inside tents that we believe the group was planning to use to throw at officers or damage buildings. This was also untrue, which was admitted by police at the press conference. What were they doing with the tent? Was that like a medical triage kind of situation? Or? I don't know exactly. Everything they were doing with the tent, we weren't sure what it was. It's kind of an unknown threat at that time, is my understanding. As you can see in the video, at one point one of the officers moved the tent, the pier did not have anything significant in it at length, so I don't know anything else beyond that. Regarding Mayor Gerst's statement that they had strong evidence they needed to clear downtown to protect businesses there, this appears also to have been mostly inaccurate. How do I know? Well first, if protesters were keen on smashing windows, they could have done that any night for the past two months. There have been many protests in Athens since May 31st, but to date, no property here has been destroyed related to them. But let's take a look at the events of May 31st from the perspective of police, so you can decide for yourself if you feel their actions were justified. In a stand in solidarity with protesters in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Detroit, Louisville, Kentucky, Brooklyn, Atlanta, and those who will be gathering here at Athens as they use whatever means necessary to make their voices heard and demand justice for Mod Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the countless victims of police violence and systemic racism in this country. Before the protest on May 31st even started, police were already concerned that it would get out of hand. In Athens, police were monitoring the social media feeds of organizers and groups they classified as extremist. They were also monitoring the feeds of people who were not involved with protest organizing. After George Floyd's murder, many Athenians were of course angry and were not always careful with how they expressed their anger. But police took every outburst very seriously and became very concerned about police took every outburst very seriously and became progressively alarmed and frightened of their own community. This letter from a traumatized black queer activist was circulated before and during the May 31st protest and was read by police with concern. Other people began to share stories about past violence they suffered at the hands of police. One such story went viral and caught police attention. Next we have Commissioner Mariah Parker's statement of solidarity with the nationwide protests. The police were paying attention and they were not happy about it. Even this completely harmless tweet by an Atlanta socialist group seemed to cause panic at police headquarters. Because the group is based in Atlanta, police labeled them outside agitators. Never mind that they aren't outsiders or agitators at all. Both members of the party of socialism and liberation who attended the rally live in Athens and they left well before dark. Never mind the fact that the people posting stories of police violence were not involved in the protest organizing. Never mind that the actual organizers had no violent intentions and never encouraged violence. Mariah Parker wanted to promote her plan to reduce police funding. She didn't want to break windows, but it seems that everyone involved became a suspect for a crime that hadn't happened yet. As chief's rule became more and more worried about the possibility that the coming protest might turn destructive, he reached out to state authorities for help. That's when the National Guard was activated. He also asked the local government for an emergency declaration and curfew before the protest even started. He was denied at that time by D'Borolonin who thought there wasn't enough evidence to justify a curfew. She was right, of course, but police had also received reports that members of the Boogaloo movement would show up, as they did. Now they are extremists, and their presence armed with rifles was certainly agitating to everyone nearby. That included the police. The presence of Boogaloo confirmed the department's pre-event intelligence concerning extremist groups and elevated the threat assessment at that time. When they arrived on scene it seemed to confirm everything police had been worried about. From then on they started interpreting normal behaviors like wearing a backpack or a respirator during a pandemic as potentially threatening. Now protestors were preparing to protect themselves from potential police violence, there's no doubt about that. Apparently they were right to do so. After the Boogaloo arrived, assistant manager Lonin finally agreed to declare a curfew. This was the first in a series of small decisions that led to the police turning violent. The second happened when the National Guard informed Chief Sprule that they would be pulling out a little after midnight. Sprule was fearful that he wouldn't be able to maintain control if the National Guard pulled out. Those assets were needed elsewhere. My officers did not have the training and did not have the equipment that was necessary to be effective in that kind of an environment. And so rather than waiting longer, we decided that we were going to disperse at that time. Since he believed the crowd was about to start breaking windows, setting fires and potentially even attacking police officers, he felt he had no choice but to disperse the crowd while he still could. The third decision in this series of events involved how the crowd would be pushed out of downtown. One option could involve approaching the protesters and arresting everyone who refused to leave. But that's not what Sprule chose to do. Our objective was not to arrest people, our objective was to get people to leave. When police saw protesters forming ranks and linking arms, they realized they would be difficult to remove without using tear gas. ACCPD aren't trained on how to handle a group of people like that who choose to resist arrest. They also feared that some protesters might fight back. They were imagining officers being hit with bricks and they were also worried that some protesters might have guns. Covert operatives say they did see that some protesters had firearms, although ACCPD hasn't presented any proof of that. If protesters fought back, they would be shot or clubbed with a baton. Of course, this is a completely paranoid scenario. We're talking about unarmed high school and college students. If any protester had a gun and wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, my guess is that they would have done that regardless of the method police chose to clear the area. But that didn't happen. So, the decision was made to use tear gas. And that decision led straight to the next one, which was to shoot protesters with rubber bullets. And hey, if you believe those tear gas canisters were the only thing stopping an all-out brawl or potentially even a gunfight from breaking out, you're going to protect them. And that's what they did. Any protester who interfered with the canisters was shot. And although these weapons are less lethal, they can cause permanent injury or even kill you. So, that's how it happened. One decision led to another and another, and finally to potentially deadly force being used against regular people who weren't doing anything besides standing in the road. This was an irrational response disconnected from the reality of what was actually happening. And unfortunately, they didn't come to their senses afterward either. You may not have heard this, but Chief Sprule asked for another curfew which would have canceled the AADM protest held a few days later. Sprule's reasoning? He was freaked out by a public art project. Yeah, there's an artist in town who likes to paint railroad spikes to look like colorful little characters and they're scattered around town as public art. They have nothing to do with the protest. But for some reason, the police thought they were pre-staged weaponry. And I'm not kidding, Sprule wanted to cancel AADM's protest. I mean, is Sprule okay? Does he need help? Thankfully, the manager's office saw things differently and declined to grant him the curfew. And nothing happened, of course. I mean, this must be so embarrassing for them. I'm embarrassed. And yet, police are using this shameful and embarrassing chapter in their history as a reason why they should get more funding. They want to buy an LRAD soundcan and to use against protesters next time. I don't know what to say. I wish I could end this on a more positive note. But the truth is, the police have completely lost all credibility with me. I know I said that we find out how to stop police from overreacting in this video, but this one's long enough already, so maybe we'll do a part two sometime. I want to thank my patrons for making these videos possible. You guys are amazing. And if you want to join their esteemed ranks, you'll get a vote on which video topics we cover next. So please, head on over to my PayPal or Patreon, and the link is in the description. Thanks so much, see you on the next one.