Cities: June 2020 Archives

A young friend of mine was incensed at the attitude of older folks about the incident on the North Detroit overpass of Interstate 244. "The point of a protest is this: How does it feel to be powerless?" So it was fine, in the eyes of this homeschooled, Christian young adult, for people to wander off of the planned demonstration route (on Detroit under the I-244 overpass), block traffic on a busy, elevated motorway, box in a driver towing a horse trailer, so that they could make the drivers feel powerless, too. And this is supposed to advance constructive change?

But people aren't powerless. Next week -- Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, June 8-10, 2020 -- is the filing period for City of Tulsa offices. Every office is on the ballot: Mayor, Auditor, and all nine City Councilors. If you don't like the way the police department is run, if you think laws are unjust or unjustly enforced, run for office. Pour your energy into finding candidates, organizing, and knocking on doors. This year, more than ever, leading up to the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the message that motivated the peaceful protest late Sunday afternoon in Greenwood is going to be enthusiastically amplified by local broadcast and print media. (Here's the City of Tulsa 2020 election packet.)

Nicole Gelinas, a New York-based columnist and analyst on urban issues, tweeted to a 20-year-old who lamented that she couldn't attend the protests because she cares for an elderly grandparent:

Most responsible thing to do is stay home, plan long-term strategy for constructive, deliberate change. Throwing bodies on street to pandemic solves nothing, endangers people, actually creates huge anti-progressive backlash. (permalink)

When politicians see massive street protests, all they see is people who can't organize themselves into targeted, deliberate coalitions for *specific* action items. Rich white pols at home, vulnerable minorities on street risking COVID-19 death ... to maintain power structure. (permalink)

The other part of this is that massive, well-meaning, but naive and COVID-deadly street protests provide cover for well-organized anarchists with a *real* agenda. (permalink)

After tuning in at 10 to watch the news (with my shiny new, roof-mounted aerial antenna -- we've recently cut the cord), I stayed up late Sunday night, watching coverage and tweeting about it, for as long as the local stations were on the air. Fox 23 (KOKI) and News on 6 (KOTV) did a good job of covering the confrontations in Brookside, on Peorial between 36th Street and I-44. Amazingly, 2 Works for You (KJRH) was AWOL, even though the protest parked itself right in front of the station's studios for a long time. KJRH was busy covering a candlelight vigil at Archer and Greenwood during their 10 o'clock news, then ran their scheduled paid programming from Joel Osteen. KOTV packed it in shortly after midnight, after KOTV caught video of vandals breaking into Cash America pawnshop and Round the House consignment mall in the Bellaire shopping center (just north of I-44 on the east side of Peoria), shortly after which the thugs bashed in KOTV reporter Emory Bryan's car windows. KOKI called it a night a few minutes later. If we ever have actual news after midnight in this town, will anyone from our TV and radio stations be listening to the scanner to cover it? Who's got the night watch?

The two big confrontations on Sunday were on I-244 at Detroit, during the Black Lives Matter Rally in the afternoon, and on Brookside Sunday night. The organizer of the rally, Tykebrean Natrail Cheshier, has said publicly that these two protests were not part of her rally.

Friday night, May 29, Cheshier posted a description of the rally:

Sunday May 31, 2020
5pm
( show up @ 4pm to help set up)
Canned food donations go to the Vernon AME Church ( please put them on the front steps) !!
Also they have food drives all the time as well ( support that)
Water stations will be set up ( will need donated waters )
Snacks stations will be set up ( will need donated snacks)
Poster board station as well! Bring your own and extras as well! ( markers are welcomed)
Trash cans will be set up as well!

Speakers will start @ 5pm in the field by the church on Black Wall Street !
After the speakers we will March to the John Hope Franklin Park around 630 and that's where it will end!

I still have room for a couple more speakers!
If your wanting for speak you have to be on the list! ( please message me )

I will also need tables & chairs for the volunteers!!

This will be downtown on green wood!

Please park @ OSU Tulsa and walk to greenwood!!

SUPPORT BLACK OWNED BUSINESS!!

T shirts will be for sell from those businesses!

Please take time to look @ all of the plaques on the ground and walls as we walk around greenwood !!

THIS WILL BE THE 99 Year Anniversary of Black Wall Street being burnt down!

THIS IS A PEACEFUL RALLY AND IT WILL STAY THAT WAY!!

I hope this answers more questions!!!

At 5:24 am Monday, Cheshier posted a map of the intended route -- from the field next to Vernon AME Church, south on Greenwood, west on Archer, north on Detroit, east on Reconciliation Way (formerly Brady, north on Elgin to Reconciliation Park, stating:

Here was the route from yesterday but once I passed out in front a couple other "activist " Decided to leave me and take over. This route is what the cops wanted for us. No highway . I do apologize again. I didn't stay hydrated and got over heated ..

At 10:10 pm Sunday, Cheshier posted:

My rally was over around 7.. Whatever else happens tonight has nothing to do with my rally. Mine was peaceful up til I passed out and someone took over and went on the highway.... ( the people that were hit are ok( so I've heard)) other then that the rally was peaceful and I'm thankful .. I'm going to rest now.. thank y'all

Going back through her Facebook feed and the event page for the rally, the rally seems like an earnest but hastily organized response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, tying the protest into the 99th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, and it's clear that Cheshier and her fellow organizers had nothing to do with the foolhardy stroll on the interstate or the street blockade and vandalism on Peoria.

In Brookside on late Sunday night, Tulsa police officers with shields maintained a distance from the crowds and responded to objects thrown at them with pepper balls and, after things got completely out of hand, tear gas canisters. TPD officers handled themselves well, but were constrained by the presence of non-violent protesters and members of the general public from dealing with the violent characters present in the crowd.

As I write this early Tuesday morning, all of the Tulsa TV stations have ceased live coverage -- KTUL News 8 and Fox 23 were the only stations on the scene when I tuned in around 11:30 pm. The action was north of the intersection of 71st and Memorial, the heart of south Tulsa's retail corridor, some people were breaking store windows, some were standing in the middle of the street. The Oklahoma National Guard were present to back up the Tulsa Police Department. Again, pepper balls and tear gas were used to respond to violent provocation.

At Monday's news conference, Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV declined to issue a curfew or to take any other action that would make it easier for law enforcement to separate peaceful protesters from those intending to cause mayhem or do damage.

The situation would seem to fit Title 21, Chapter 55, Sections 1311 through 1321.10, of Oklahoma Statutes, which defines what a riot is, what constitutes participation in a riot, and the penalties that apply. The Governor can declare a state of emergency. The Governor can ban people from the streets, impose a curfew, ban the sale of fuel that might be used by rioters, ban other normally lawful activities. Municipalities are authorized "authorized to enact ordinances in general conformity with the provisions of this act," and if state and local laws differ, the stricter provision applies.

Title 8 of Tulsa Revised Ordinances authorizes the mayor to declare an emergency, order a general curfew, and close businesses that might fuel the rioters. Title 29, Section 105, declares (emphasis added):

It shall be the duty of the Chief of Police to preserve the public peace, to prevent the commission of crime, to arrest offenders, to protect the rights of persons and property, to provide police officers at fires to protect the firefighters and property, to suppress riots and insurrections and disperse unlawful and dangerous assemblies, to preserve order at all elections and all public meetings and assemblies, to prevent and regulate the movement of vehicles in the streets and to prevent the violation of all laws and ordinances.

For years I had heard and used phrases like "she read him the riot act" without knowing the historical basis for the cliché. Then a few years ago I was driving through the town of Young, New South Wales, Australia, on my way from Wagga Wagga to Cowra, and the sign above caught my eye.

Young was the site of the Lambing Flat riot. Australian gold miners, envious of the organization and success of immigrant Chinese miners, attacked the Chinese miners and drove them away, destroying their camps and looting their belongings. When the police arrived to restore order and to arrest the riot ringleaders, the rioters responded with an attack on the police camp. The Gold Commissioner read the proclamation prescribed in the 1714 Riot Act, which declared the mob to be an unlawful assembly, ordered everyone to disperse, and made anyone remaining guilty of a felony, and the authorities will not be liable if any of the rioters are injured as the authorities attempt to arrest or disperse them.

What follows is the short version; you can read the full 1714 Riot Act here.

If any persons to the number of 12 or more unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assemble together to the disturbance of the public peace and being required by any Justice by proclamation in the King's name in the exact form of the Riot Act, I George I, Sess. 2, c. 5 s. 2, to disperse themselves and peaceably depart, shall to the number of 12 or more unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously remain or continue together for an hour after such proclamation shall be guilty of a felony.

Our sovereign lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.

It's past time that Gov. Stitt or Mayor Bynum IV read the local equivalent of the Riot Act, and put everyone on notice that every law-abiding Tulsan should be off the streets after a reasonable hour Tuesday night, and anyone gathering in traffic or in the company of those damaging local businesses will be presumed to be a rioter and dealt with accordingly.

MORE: This KJRH drone video provides context for the I-244 confrontation, showing the crowds diverting up the Detroit eastbound on-ramp and the concrete embankment and gathering on the eastbound lanes. You can see that cars are still arriving from the west, unaware of what is ahead. You can see the red pickup with large horse trailer, and in front of it, a silver car that the crowd allowed to pass through. A couple of police cruisers appear briefly on the edge of the frame, parked on the shoulder at the Elgin overpass, possibly as a vantage point for watching the march below.

MORE VIDEO:

Fox 23: Tulsa protest organizer Tykebrean Cheshier, speaks out against violent demonstrations. As on her Facebook posts, she disavowed and denounced those who went up onto I-244, and those who participated in unlawful street-blocking and vandalism over several nights.

Another video of the I-244 confrontation, provided to local news outlets, taken from the right side of the pickup, show an older man waving the truck ahead and urging his fellow demonstrators to clear the path. After the truck began moving, protestors moved into block his progress. I saw it first on Fox 23, but this looks like the same video, minus Clay Loney standing in front, so it's clearer to see that the truck's initial movement was into a cleared space, that the mob moved back in to obstruct the truck, and that the mob began beating on the truck before the truck began to move forward again.