Peaceful Rally Ends in Questionable Police Tactics
By: Christa McWhirter
AUSTIN, TX — On Friday evening, protesters gathered in front of The Austin Police Department to support Linda Nuno — who, one week ago, went viral after being detained by police under highly controversial circumstances.
Supporters began arriving at 7:00 p.m. to set up music, hand sanitizer, and water and sandwich stations. Despite no police outside to stand guard, and the presence of several organizations which have, thus far, responded to each other with tension, the demonstration remained peaceful and unified.
Many speeches were given throughout the evening — all fostering the environment of solidarity — the times when Nuno spoke are what ultimately brought the group together. In some instances, while speaking on the importance of unity, she would walk into the crowd to bring someone up front to stand in solidarity.
“That was super powerful, that level of unity that she did,” said one protester, Sloan Fussell, 24. “Through that, we had a moment of transparency between all people that are in those leadership atmospheres. We just saw people for who they were at the moment and we saw the liars for their lies and we saw people to tell the truth.”
Unfortunately, as many of these peaceful demonstrations go, the peace didn’t last. Police made their way out of the building and up to the barricades around 9:30 p.m. and the situation quickly devolved from there.
Shortly after APD positioned themselves, a homeless woman stood on the barricade, and subsequently the brick ledge, in front of APD. She started speaking erratically, causing tension within the group of protesters about how best to handle the situation.
“Protesters were arguing if we should let her get arrested or not arrested. So we were all debating who should get her down or not,” said Dylan Turner, 24, another protester on the scene.
According to the protester, APD officers appeared increasingly agitated by the situation before rushing the small crowd.
“We’re trying to get everybody, like all the protesters, back across the street because we’re not trying to fight the cops,” said Turner. “We’re going to lose, you know?”
At 10:00 p.m. protesters had another run-in with local law enforcement: but this time they were is white vans.
According to Fussell, “a cop rolled up to the side of the police headquarters heading South on frontage road. And they stopped, opened the door, tried to grab someone really quick, just some dude, some lanky white dude with glasses. . . they didn’t catch him.”
“They started trying to surround us in vans and scoop us up randomly,” Turner recalled.
The white van has been described by multiple people present on the scene as having a small “City of Austin” logo on the passenger doors, but no indication of association with Austin Police Department.
“It just says the city of Austin,” stated Churner. “It’s not APD and they’re just hopping out in their full gear, grabbing people.”
After the encounter, the crowd decided to march to city hall to get away from the police.
Adding to that, “I think it’s very important to note that we were marching on the sidewalk. We weren’t marching in the streets,” impressed Fussell. “Like, we were even respecting the law.”
Another protester stated that, during the march the vans found them again and picked off another protester from the sidewalk — this time, though, they were successful. No confirmation yet on who the protester is.
“Once the door opens, you can see like five or six officers just sitting,” he said, recalling his experience. “They also stopped in the middle of the intersection.”
According to protesters, this isn’t the first time the white vans have been spotted picking off protesters: they were first seen on Wednesday, July 8.
Despite the chaotic end, attendees agree that the evening was a step in the right direction, through fostering unity amongst advocacy groups in Austin.
“We pulled organizations together and different people that have been in leadership positions into one atmosphere,” said Fussell. “That element was such a sign of progression of the movement as far as unifying us all under one umbrella as protesters.”
