HomeMy WebLinkAbout7-21-20 witness stmtDocumenting my experience on 7/21/20, specifically between 6:02pm and 6:08pm:
Attended a protest at Mitchell Park starting at 4pm. Then following the p rotest, we started marching around downtown
before turning onto Santa Rosa. Walking northwest along Santa Rosa Blvd, we travelled past the Police Station on
Walnut, over the 101 freeway overpass, and then turned left onto Olive. At this point, I knew that meant we were about
to enter the SB freeway, as there are no other reasons for going down that street as a march unless that was the intent.
At 6:02pm I took a picture and texted my husband so he would be aware and possibly track the news on it. Then looked
over at Michelle Arata and said “we’re doing this!?!” I honestly was a bit nervous as I wasn’t sure we had enough people
to safely be a “mass” out there.
Photo taken from the back of the protestors at 6:02pm
I was near the back of the group, and once we entered the southbound lanes of the freeway, we went across to the
median, not knowing that the intent was to span across the entire freeway. A blue minivan was able to get through on
the SB right lane/shoulder, and many of us spread back out across the SB lanes to prevent more cars from doing the
same. Rather than be directly in front of the cars, I was with my twin 13-year-olds further south down the shoulder/fog
line of the SB lanes. Making sure I had them near and with me, I took a few pictures of the group (tagged 6:07pm). In the
first one below, the car is circled in red.
Taken just after, I turned my direction towards the median.
I did not see all of the moments leading up to the car “incident”. What I did see is as follows:
Protestors were lined up and not in contact or threatening any cars. We were simply trying to impede the flow of the
freeway and bring the cars to a stop. I have a picture of the moment when a bicycle rider had his bike blocking the car,
but not the immediate moments after that as I had turned to look at the median to see if we had further instruction. I
was hearing a commotion towards the cars, and turned to see the car lurch forward and a young man on the hood. It
was very clear that the only reason he was up there was to avoid being dragged under the car as it moved forward. At
this time I looked down to attempt to get my phone to start videotaping and did not see the skateboarder actually hit
the car with his board, but I did see the car stop long enough for people to get out of the way, the skateboarder to get
his board back, and the car to try to continue onward. I did not see any child in the backseat, but again, I was trying to
videotape and was yelling out the license plate in the hopes that it was being recorded. (This was all where I have “US”
written and circled on the map below.) The moment of video I did take after it passed has a timestamp of 6:08pm.
There were quite a few very upset protestors who were in the path of that car that started to take off down the road
behind the car, but the organizers and volunteers in safety vests stopped them from pursuing and to r eturn to listening
to the peaceful intent of the protest message. The car briefly stopped at a CHP parked many yards down the freeway
CHP” in blue on map), but then continued on to the law enforcement officer parked at the offramp at Broad Street
LEO” in blue on map). I did not observe what jurisdiction the other LEO was from.
Other notes from after that time period:
We stood and listened to various protestors take a turn at talking into the bull horn to the crowd, with Michelle Arata at
one point calling out that the white people in attendance need to be extra vigilant as their actions are likely to be taken
out on the BIPOC in attendance and in the community. After a while, we continued onward against the flow of stopped
cars as we were still in the SB lanes. Any cars that yelled at us, I responded with “have a nice day!”. By 6:53pm we were
sitting and having a moment of silence when I decided that it was time to take my children off the freeway and away
from the situation as it seemed to us like LEO’s were going to escalate as soon as they had collected/organized
themselves. We walked further down the freeway to the Murray exit (203B), witnessed Tianna Arata and some other
protestors trying to stop a car from using the exit ramp (they were not touching it at all), and kept walking. We went to
Santa Rosa Park and that is where our experience with this protest ended.
In my multiple protests led by the BIPOC youth of SLO, I have never heard or seen Tianna Arata encourage violence of
any kind. The leaders of this movement are very specific to stay peaceful and not engage with any distractors or
provoking bystanders that may be in disagreement with the cause.