Cops face off with protesters at state Capitol

Hundreds rebel against order to stay at home

In the most intense protest yet against California’s stay-at-home order, demonstrators crowded the west steps of the Capitol on Friday and scuffled with California Highway Patrol officers who had ordered them to disperse. At least three protesters were detained during the demonstration, which lasted about four hours.

The protest by several hundred people — some holding American flags and signs calling for the economy to reopen — started peacefully but quickly escalated when CHP officers ordered them to leave the steps of the landmark downtown Sacramento building or face arrest.

Some demonstrators got within a few inches of officers’ faces, screaming that their rights to assemble were being violated and calling officers “traitors” for defending the government’s orders to restrict gatherings at schools, businesses and churches.

The protest was in direct violation of both Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order, designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and a CHP ban on protests on state property, the latter prompted by a crowded demonstration at the Capitol a week ago.

Nonetheless, CHP officers initially allowed throngs of demonstrators to enter the Capitol grounds. Without riot gear, they mingled with the crowds and offered friendly reminders to maintain social distancing. Few who descended on the grounds wore masks or observed the 6foot protocols that have been in place since the coronavirus pandemic struck.

Protest started peacefully

Although the protest was scheduled to begin at noon, dozens of people were on the Capitol grounds before 10 a.m. Port-a-potties were set up on the sidewalk and a truck was mounted with large speakers blaring country songs and other music. Steel fencing was set up around the entrance to the steps, but pathways to the steps were left open and people were moving about freely.

The demonstration was orderly at the start: At least 500 cars, trucks, motorcycles, RVs and vans were circling the Capitol, honking horns, waving flags — American flags, banners for Trump and the Gadsden flag that reads “Don’t Tread on Me” — in a procession so clogged it took nearly an hour to circle the complex and forced Sacramento Regional Transit to re-route buses.

Protesters selling Trump T-shirts set up shop on the sidewalk, assembling makeshift merchandise stores of fold-out tables lined with red “Make America Great Again” hats. Families sunbathed on the lawn, with children in strollers and teenagers holding signs urging schools to reopen and graduation ceremonies to continue.

Many carried signs claiming the virus was a government hoax to inspire fear and submission. Other demonstrators acknowledged the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic but said they needed the freedom to return to work.

“We are 100 percent willing and able to go back to work with precautions and with greater restrictions, but we need to go back to work,” said Jennifer Erin Freitas, a nurse and aesthetician. “Our government is killing our economy.” A sudden change in tone Tensions started to mount when hundreds of protesters began congregating on the Capitol’s west steps. Within minutes, CHP officers formed a defensive perimeter around the Capitol’s entrance, holding their batons horizontally and prompting jeers from the crowd. An officer with a loudspeaker then read a statement, citing health and safety codes , ordering them to disperse or face arrest.

A handful of protesters broke through a line of CHP officers guarding the Capitol. Officers formed a line and were able to move the hostile crowd away from the building. Some in the crowd chanted “remember your oath” to officers. One woman could be heard yelling “traitors” to officers. Another shouted into a megaphone, “President Trump, we need you.”

It wasn’t immediately clear why the CHP officers, after allowing the demonstrators onto the grounds, then decided they had to leave. Officials with the CHP’s Capitol detail couldn’t be immediately reached for comment; a spokesman at the agency’s state headquarters deferred questions to the unit’s information officer.

Small, isolated scuffles broke out as protesters yelled “our house” and “open up” at the officers. They began demanding cops to abandon their post and “remember your oath.”

At least three people who tried to cross police lines were pulled away and detained. Several other people were pulled from the crowd as well. Among them was Heidi Munoz Gleisner of the group Freedom Angels; Gleisner is a familiar figure at the Capitol for participating in antivaccination protests.

Within the span of 20 minutes, officers in riot gear — wearing heavy-duty helmets with shields and face masks beneath, as well as protective vests and leggings — used long batons to push the crowd back. They told demonstrators they weren’t impeding their First Amendment rights.

CHP officers were able to move the crowd 25 feet away from the building, and another standoff ensued for about a half hour or so. Then officers flanking the protesters on three sides issued a “final warning” and began to push the crowd back again. The crowd started booing, with one chanting into a megaphone, “We have a right to assemble,” but they slowly moved away, one step at a time.