Went to No Kings Protest. Escaped a Shooting.
Reply via email: me@absurdpirate.com
I'm writing this as I'm trying to process what the hell happened last night. You might be able to take a guess where I was at if you look at the news or front page of reddit.
I attended the No Kings protest in my area. It was honestly amazing seeing so many people standing in solidarity with one another, republicans, democrats, and marxists all together to protest. Roughly 7,000 people in attendance from what I was able to gather.
I went to the protest with a close friend. We arrived at the meeting spot early, I wrote on the back of a free sign that was being handed out, I wrote "The American Dream is Killing Me". Green Day reference of course, one guy complimented the reference. We got the sign as well as a pride flag. I made the joke that the bisexual woman was a better fit to hold the pride flag than the straight dude. So, she held the flag I held the sign.
The speakers were amazing, one was a trans woman with so much fire in her voice and a powerful speech. Another was a public defender and city counsel member giving us tips to staying safe, as well as giving everyone the public defenders number. Another was the president from an LGBTQ+ Marxist-Leninist organization. It all ended with a guy playing "Uprising" by Muse on guitar.
We began marching, chanting "Fuck You Donald", "The People United Will Never Be Divided", "This is What Democracy Looks Like", "Who's Streets? Our Streets!". The signs were hilarious, one guy dressed as Bruno from Encanto had a sign that said "Defend Mexican Baddies", another said "Ice in my drink not on my streets", etc.
It gave me a sense of hope for this country, I was proud to stand next to all those people united under one cause. Nobody was fighting. It felt like being a part of something that would go down in the history books.
We had planned on marching to the state capital. My friend had stopped to stretch her calf a bit, joked about her "old age" (she's 30),then we continued marching. We were getting close to making our second loop towards State street when shit went south.
All of a sudden my friend stopped said "hold up, people are turning back", I took out the headphone I had in my ear and saw people split and sprint back in my direction. I started hearing people say "someone's shooting", "shots fired". I made a full 180 and sprinted to the nearest intersection and rounded the corner to get out of the main street.
One person helped get people into an apartment building. I just kept running down the street. I eventually realized I had lost my friend in the chaos. I waited a bit to try and find her, trying to peer over the crowd and keeping an eye out for a pride flag. I eventually saw her walking in my direction, and I held up my sign so she could see where I was. Apparently after rounding the corner she immediately threw up.
We wanted nothing more than to be as far away from the city as humanely possible, asking around to others for details as to what happened. We saw police, ambulance, and fire trucks going straight to the scene. We came to realize how close we were to line of fire. Had my friend not stopped to stretch for a literal minute, we would have been right next to the shooter.
I was on edge the whole time, waiting for more gunshots. I was waiting for someone to just drive by and mow the rest of us down. I couldn't settle until I was on the train heading south, away from the city.
One person lost their life, while I'm grateful that there weren't any more casualties, I'm saddened that his happened at all. I knew something like this would happen. I was prepared for something to happen, but I never expected something to actually happen, especially not so close to me.
I don't even want to leave the house right now. I certainly am going to be staying away from the city for a while. I know I can't let the fear win, that's what fascists want. I'm going to talk with my therapist and try and work through it. For now, I'm going to enjoy my time with my wife and daughter.
Stay safe out there folks. There are genuinely insane people out there who want nothing more than to hurt you because you dared to protest a tyrant.