Orlando police release bodycam video of clashes
The Orlando Police Department released dozens of clips from body worn cameras on Thursday, showing protesters throwing bottles, rocks and other objects at officers and police responding with smoke cannisters, pepper spray and tear gas.
The clips also showed how quickly peaceful — if angry — demonstrations have sometimes devolved into chaos in recent days, with officers berated and sometimes pelted, and protesters, most of them nonviolent, fleeing armored police in a haze of gas.
Thursday night brought a different kind
of end to the demonstrations. As the clock ticked toward the 8 p.m. curfew for downtown Orlando, hundreds of protesters who had gathered in the rain four hours earlier peacefully dispersed.
After five previous nights downtown that ended with bolder defiance of the curfew or the skirmishes caught on police video, the sixth night brought the calmest conclusion yet to the public demands for justice for George Floyd and an end to systemic racism.
Just after 8 p.m. only one man was left, standing in the street with his hands up. But he quickly walked to a sidewalk and put his hands down.
Chanting, “We are peaceful,” the protesters ended a march through the city’s central business district at Orlando City Hall about an hour before the curfew.
Shortly after that, organizers began urging people to go home.
“It’s almost curfew, there are kids out here .. this is not the time to go crazy,” an unidentified organizer said as a crowd was still gathered.
Earlier in the afternoon, demonstrators led chants and shared experiences through a megaphone in the plaza outside City Hall before marching through downtown.
“All lives don’t matter until black lives matter,” chanted the crowd, where a number of people were wearing masks in response to the coronavirus.
Police presence in the plaza appeared lighter in the early hours of the event than in recent days. A squad of Orlando officers arrived on bicycles, but were not wearing gas masks or other riot gear. A handful of people were taken into custody during the march, but it was unclear why.
Aston Mack has protested in
Orlando each day since Saturday, and said he’s been frustrated with the law enforcement response such as the use of tear gas and pepper spray.
Each day, Mack said he’s tried to engage with officers and as the week has progressed, he’s had greater luck. On Wednesday he said an officer had a frank conversation with him about the killing of Floyd.
“Don’t meet us with the riot gear, don’t meet us with the tear gas, meet us with this kind of compassion,” Mack said Thursday. “They’re here to protect me, they’re here to make sure I’m safe.”
The videos released by OPD on Thursday were from the first night of downtown protests on Saturday, as well as Sunday and Tuesday — three nights when police eventually used tear gas.
The agency put out short clips, with the objects thrown toward officers highlighted with a circle. It also released longer videos putting the clips into context.
The first of the videos was from Saturday at 7:18 p.m. It was recorded by a bike officer who appeared to be on State Road 408. Roughly 16 minutes in, the protesters who had been milling about in front of the officer start fleeing. Gas is visible from the direction they came.
A protester throws a pipe toward police. Soon more gas is in the air. Some protesters pick them up and hurl them back toward officers.
“Head’s up, they’re throwing it back!” an officer yells.
The officer coughed and groaned as he rode his bike through the gas without a mask. Other officers appeared to have also not been wearing masks, with at least one recorded rinsing out his eyes with a bottle of water.
“I left my [expletive] at Pulse,” said the recording officer, who seemed to feel the effects of the gas again as it began to rain.
From another angle, it appeared many of the protesters had left the 408 before the chaos, with a smaller crowd gathered to hold the line, many locking arms. One group chastised a protester who appeared to throw a bottle while others shouted at police as they were being pushed back.
But protesters threw more bottles and a few canisters after the gas was released.
Another video, which began about 9 p.m. Sunday, showed an officer arriving to an Interstate 4 on-ramp at Garland Avenue and dodging a water bottle and another object as he exited his car, thrown in his direction by a protester.
The officer appeared to throw a canister back at protesters, shooting sparks as it rolled across the ground.
Protesters threw water bottles and an object that made a clinking sound as it hit the ground. Officers deployed either gas or smoke. A nearby officer also appeared to be using pepper spray, while the officer whose camera recorded the chaos coughs.
The officer then started to pull something out of his vest before another officer asked him to stop.
He soon shoots a projectile at protesters as the area fills with smoke. He hands canisters to another officer, who throws them at the crowd.
The officers pause to strategize. The one filming says the crowd has split into two groups — about 50 on the on-ramp and the rest moving downtown. He mentions he’s feeling the effects of tear gas and is having trouble seeing. He takes his mask off as another officer says that rocks hit the nearby cruiser, but there are no broken windows or dents in the car.
The officer filming then tells other officers to “load up again on our tear gas.”
Meanwhile, an SGL Construction employee pulls up alongside the officers and asks, “In my eyes… What is that, tear gas? [Expletive]”
The officer told him to turn on his air conditioning for relief.
About 9:15 p.m. the same night, protesters were sitting on the divider of a highway ramp when bicycle officers with masks rode up to them. The protesters jumped off the divider and off the highway into the street, where other demonstrators gathered to argue with the officers.
One officer yelled, “Watch out, rocks!”
The police didn’t pursue those who threw the debris, which upset one officer.
“Don’t we gas somebody with a [expletive] canister?” he asks another cop. “Launch a goddamn canister at that [expletive].”
Around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, a group of police stood in front of protesters chanting, “No justice, no peace.” While some talked to the officers, other demonstrators argued with them.
“Are you here to protect and serve, sir?” one man asked an officer.
“That’s right,” the cop responded.
“Would you feel weird if your fellow officers told me no?” the man said. “[Because] they have.”
As the man went down the line asking officers the same question, he told one cop, “If you don’t know a racist cop, it’s probably you.” A few minutes after 10 p.m., an OPD officer warned protesters they were violating the city-mandated curfew.
“You are subject to arrest if you do not disperse,” one OPD officer said through a loudspeaker.
Police followed protesters walking away from City Hall who were still holding up their signs and yelling.
“We are peaceful,” protesters chanted.
About 30 seconds later, protesters ran in a panicked frenzy down South Street as the cops ran behind them wearing masks. Someone screamed.
Demonstrators chucked water bottles at the officers. About 10 seconds later, police rolled gas canisters in their direction that emitted sparks. It’s unclear if the canisters were filled with smoke or tear gas.
Some protesters kicked the canisters back toward officers before dissolving into the haze.