Those arrested tell other side of local protest
On June 2, over 60,000 protesters showed up to march in solidarity with the family of George Floyd in downtown Houston at Discovery Green. What lasted for hours as a peaceful protest suddenly turned into a night of confusion, aggression and maltreatment. While the Houston Police Department tweeted proudly about the night’s arrests, hundreds of students, medics, community members and supporters were forced to spend the next 18 to 30-plus hours in the Harris County Jail just blocks from where they honored George Floyd’s life and legacy.
The media was near-silent about the night of the protest, releasing photos and articles surrounding the peaceful events of the afternoon. Only on Twitter did we see a shift in information from the protesters’ point of view. One tweet on June 2 at 7:03 p.m. expressed warning of a potentially dangerous police presence near the area and another at 7:50 p.m. indicated the police deploying harmful tactics during the protest.
Members of the public then pieced together a story of escalation through the footage and tweets of protesters who were able to make it home safe. One such person posted a Twitter thread where, in the posted video footage, protesters seemed to be walking away from where the arrests had taken place, but HPD pointed them back toward the turmoil. The officer said, “You can go back around and join them, or there are some more over there you can join.” This inspired the phrase protesters coined, the “Houston protest trap,” which referred to the HPD corralling groups of protesters and arresting them en masse. It was not until the slow release of protesters in the early hours of June 4 that the sheer magnitude of escalation, intimidation and assaults enacted by the HPD were revealed online.
Protesters took to Twitter with the hashtags #HoustonProtestTrap to post photos and videos of what happened the night of the arrests. With the support of organizations like Black Lives Matter Houston, protesters were met with an abundance of resources. Furthermore, through Mutual Aid Houston and West Street Recovery, they were able to share testimonies that utterly contradicted the public statements of peace made by government officials.
An HPD officer was filmed encouraging protesters to demonstrate “all day” if they stayed on the sidewalk, but protesters in one tweet and after another explained that even after remaining on the sidewalk, they were arrested anyway. Protesters said there was no way to leave without being arrested. Many posted videos of themselves chanting along the sidewalk and being forced back by HPD.
Footage emerged from protesters near Avenida de las Americas that showed police surrounding and charging at the protesters on the sidewalk. Protester Adriana Salazar described the moment she saw the other protesters being arrested. “We were standing along the sidewalk facing the glass (of a hotel),” Salazar said. “Another protester said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go peacefully, OK?’ and yeah, that’s when I knew it was all over.”
City officials were not initially transparent about HPD’s aggression toward protesters. On June 2, Chief Police Art Acevedo released a statement on Twitter claiming “HPD has not deployed tear gas” and Councilwoman Abbie Kamin claimed at the June 3 city budget hearing that instead pepper spray was used, but a protester captured footage of a rapidly dispersing crowd coughing and covering their mouths and eyes from some sort of harmful substance. “I was at a peaceful protest,” 24-year-old Martell Wallace recalled when I spoke with him. “It happened really fast, it was just a quick boom, everybody starting coughing, I just got out of the area as soon as I (could).”
Acevedo celebrated his squadron via Twitter for their communication and relational policing, calmly interacting with the protesters, but multiple protesters said they were not told they were under arrest until after beatings with batons began. Protesters detailed the abuse they experienced at the hands of the HPD officers. Protester Jourdan Short said, “I turn around, I see police batoning people to get them out of the way, I heard swears and I saw them ripping off people’s shoes trying to drag people, like trying to drag them by their feet.”
In a recent statement, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg wrote, “Out of a total of 654 individuals criminally charged as a result of the protests, only 51 adults and one juvenile now remain charged with active cases. We will always protect the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters.”
If Houston leaders can publicly celebrate themselves for their peaceful protests and pat themselves on the back for their police work, then those same leaders should also hold themselves accountable for abusing their power and infringing on people’s collective right to assemble.
Not only do the shameful actions and arrests by the HPD demean the protest on behalf of George Floyd, but they may stifle future demonstrations against injustice. However, if the #HoustonProtestTrap taught us anything, it is that the people of Houston can rally together anywhere, be it on the streets, behind a hashtag or behind bars. A trap is only a trap if there is no way out, and Houston folks have proven you can always make it out if you can make it through.