Saturday night protest on Plaza led to 50 arrests, 10 injured, and businesses damaged
Flames, graffiti and tear gas enveloped the Country Club Plaza Saturday night as protests turned dangerous in Kansas City.
After staging a protest Friday without major incident, Kansas City on Saturday saw burning cars, broken windows and confrontations between police and protesters that lasted late into the night, as happened days earlier in other cities — Atlanta, Minneapolis, Portland and others.
Saturday’s protest, which started about 4 p.m., felt more tense from the beginning than Friday’s affair.
Some 400 to 500 people arrived at the Country Club Plaza on Saturday afternoon, marking another in a series of protests across the country in the days that followed the death of George Floyd. Floyd died May 25 in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin, a police officer there, applied his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while he lay prone and pleading to breathe while in handcuffs.
By the end of the night, police would arrest about 50 people and report 10 people injured. Protesters threw water bottles at officers, with Capt. David Jackson, a Kansas City Police Department spokesman, estimating more than 100 rocks and bottles were thrown.
Police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowds, with limited success. Several businesses were damaged as police said people were trying to break into them. A police car was set on fire. Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergency.
Some businesses, including several near the east end of the Plaza at W. 47th Street and Wornall Road, were damaged. Windows were broken at a cupcake shop, a shoe store, a health cafe and a restaurant.
“This was declared unlawful hours ago,” Jackson said about 9 p.m. “We have deployed tear gas in order to disperse the crowd.
“We’re going to take some people into custody when we see it,” Jackson said. “We’re not going to sit back and allow anything to get out of hand.”
One protester, Holly Robbins of Kansas City, Kansas, objected to the police response to the protest, saying officers escalated the situation at a point where the crowd was calm early on. She held a sign reading “Killer Cops Must Be Stopped.”
“We have a right to assembly, and for them to forcibly remove us in a public space isn’t fair or just,” Robbins said. “I don’t think it’s right at all.”
Sunday morning, Jackson County Sheriff Darryl Forté posted a message on Twitter about the protest.
“Many are shocked this morning. I’m not because the pulse of some segments of the community indicated that we were sitting on a powder keg,” he wrote. “Discussion and action regarding perceptions and realities of police mistreatment of minorities should be ongoing.”
Sunday morning, police said they were closing or restricting access to the Plaza to allow business owners to asses and repair damage.
The Plaza had previously announced it would be closed over the weekend, from 4 p.m. Saturday until 11 a.m. Monday, because of the protests.
Early escalation
Early into the protest during the afternoon, police arrested two people. As officers made the arrests, they showered pepper spray nearby to keep other protesters away.
By 7 p.m., five people were arrested, matching the number of those taken into custody during the entirety of Friday night’s demonstrations. Minor injuries were reported by that time.
Some protesters lobbed water bottles at police officers and tensions grew. Police complained that some of the water bottles were frozen.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said the officers who have had “projectiles” thrown at them had largely “kind of taken it so far.”
“That won’t be the case forever,” he said. “You can’t come here and throw stuff.”
An explosion occurred about 8 p.m., followed by a plume of white smoke that filled the air near JC Nichols Parkway north of 47th Street. People ran from the fumes, crying and pleading to have milk poured in their eyes.
Those were telltale signs of tear gas. Police would later say they administered tear gas cans to “encourage” protesters to stay off the streets. As protesters ran, police started donning gas masks, shields and batons.
The tear gas would set the tone for the rest of the night.
Tanner Leon, 22, said he was hit twice by tear gas canisters fired by police. He said police’s response to the protesters was not warranted. He saw children hit with tear gas, he said.
“That’s not humane,” he said, looking at a line of officers and gas surrounding citizens. ”It’s terrifying when all you hear are explosions and screaming and people running.”
Later, police would say protesters had begun breaking into Plaza businesses and set fire to a police cruiser.
State of emergency
By 10 p.m. and into the rest of the night, a full-on confrontation had emerged between police and protesters.
Gov. Mike Parson declared a state of emergency due to civil unrest, a move that made the Missouri National Guard and Missouri Highway Patrol available to support local authorities.
The highway patrol was expected in Kansas City Sunday afternoon, said Jackson, the police department spokesman.
Ann Griese, 19, was sitting on a curb at the intersection of 47th Street and Main Street holding up a double-sided sign.
On one side, it read: “Black men have been murdered. Why haven’t the white men responsible been arrested?”
On the other side, it read, “No justice, no peace,” an expression heard throughout both days of protests at the JC Nichols Fountain.
“This is my first time doing something like this,” Griese said. She added that she’s still deciding how she wants to protest, but has seen that peace hasn’t been working.
Griese said earlier on Saturday, she and another girl were siting on the same curb when officers approached and hitting their batons on their shields, telling the women to move.
They did.
Then she sat on the fountain and cried for 10 to 15 minutes, she said.
“It’s scary and it’s dangerous for me,” Griese said, “so I can’t even imagine how horrible it is for people of color every single day.”
The Star’s Cortlynn Stark, Luke Nozicka and Glenn E. Rice contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 8:03 AM.
