Raleigh’s protests turned ugly. The mayor and police should have seen it coming.
The unrest that rocked downtown Raleigh on Saturday began with peaceful daytime protests that degenerated after dark into vandalism and looting that damaged many downtown businesses.
The events that followed a similar protest-to-riot pattern on Sunday added a new element – official incompetence. How could Raleigh get hit with a second night of tear gas, broken glass and fires? On Saturday, Raleigh, like many other cities, was blindsided by the night of destruction. On Sunday, Raleigh officials should have seen it coming and been better prepared.
Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin on Monday enacted a citywide curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. that will continue until further notice. She was a night late. Fayetteville took that step on Sunday.
Baldwin said she did not shut the city down Sunday night because she didn’t want to overreact. “I was hoping for the best tonight and didn’t want to automatically jump to that response,” she said in a text message to The News & Observer on Sunday night.
Hoping for the best is fine, but after what Raleigh saw of the worst Saturday, Baldwin should have been better prepared.
It was clear that on a warm Sunday night, the day’s peaceful protesters would again become or be displaced by vandals and others enjoying the attention and drama of a night full of fires, fireworks, tear gas and shattered glass. As the sun got low at 6:30 p.m., a young man arrived at the protest on the Capitol grounds with a baseball bat protruding from his backpack. It was happening again.
The city appeared to have no plan beyond hoping for the best. The police appeared to have no tactic beyond sending smoke bombs and tear gas canisters skittering along the street toward groups that disbanded and formed elsewhere.
It’s fortunate that no one was killed in encounters between police and protesters and vandals during the two nights. For that, police and sheriff’s deputies deserve credit for restraint. But it’s a failure that the city had to twice dodge a police-related death in Raleigh as people protested George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis.
The leaders of a capital city face complications with crowd control. The Capitol, the Legislative Building and the Governor’s Mansion attract protesters, but controlling them gets caught between state and city jurisdictions. These protests were particularly difficult to handle because they were about deadly violence by police.
The best approach isn’t the “get tough” one. Battering and arresting protesters may clear the streets, but it violates justice and the right to peaceably protest. What matters is managing the crowd. In Durham, the crowd on Saturday was smaller and the protests began in the morning, rather than 5 p.m. in Raleigh. Durham police managed the flow of the crowd by blocking off streets and intersections and staying in the background. The Durham protests ended peacefully.
In Raleigh on Sunday, Morgan Street remained open as a few hundred protesters gathered and chanted on the southern edge of the Capitol grounds. Cars passed honking their horns. GoTriangle buses threaded through.
Trouble started after the protesters blocked Morgan Street. With traffic blocked, police fired the first of what would become many volleys of tear gas. Throughout the chaos, cars moved through the downtown grid. Young people milled about, videoing scenes on their phones. Police played cat and mouse with groups forming and dispersing.
Raleigh officials could have handled the protests better. They should examine what went wrong and be honest with the public about an unnecessarily ugly night.