While violence ensued across American cities in recent months, many citizens are becoming exasperated with the protesting, rioting, and looting and are demanding a change when their own local leaders won’t. According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, “50% of Likely U.S. Voters say the police should crack down on the protests to bring them to an end.”
Multiple cities over the last week have seen a pushback against violence from citizens who agree that the original protest movements may have lost their purpose.
According to The Daily Wire, residents of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood interrupted a Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday “to demand the protesters leave.”
Some community members and protesters are getting into arguments here at the 7th district police station, many community members are demanding that these protesters leave their community and protest somewhere else. #Chicago #ChicagoProtests pic.twitter.com/Ej1dUwGRgc
— Tyler LaRiviere (@TylerLaRiviere) August 11, 2020
The Chicago BLM group, joined by other activist organizations, was “holding a protest to support those arrested for looting” after over 100 people were arrested on Sunday “claiming that looting is ‘reparations’” and they were just “taking what is rightfully theirs from ‘corporations.’”
Residents of the nearby neighborhood however, quickly organized a counter-protest asking the non-resident activists to disperse.
“If your issue is with the police, take it to 35th and Michigan [where CPD headquarters is located]. Don’t come in Englewood with it,” Darryl Smith, president of the Englewood Political Task Force and Englewood resident of 51 years. “If the people on 56th Street want to come over and protest the police, they can do it. But no one from the North Side or Indiana or any place other than Englewood can come here and do that.”
From earlier Daryl Smith a Englewood resident of 51 years, and community activits tells reporters why he doesn't want protesters in his neighborhood. #Chicago #ChicagoProtests pic.twitter.com/5PepJ68Y5C
— Tyler LaRiviere (@TylerLaRiviere) August 12, 2020
“Y’all don’t come out when a kid gets shot. Y’all come out when it’s got something to do with the f****** police,” Smith added.
Another Englewood resident also expressed his frustrations “They didn’t let the community know. They didn’t put flyers on peoples’ doors,” Kidd continued. “If they would’ve gotten something incited with the police, who’s gotta deal with it tomorrow? The community. Not them. They’ll be somewhere sipping sangria somewhere. I’m telling you like it is.”
According to on the ground reporters, the protest was “canceled” by BLM about 30 minutes after it started.
“We have a relationship with the commander and if anyone wants to come in here and talk to the police about the shooting or anything, they have to go through us,” the group reportedly stated.
The local BLM organization however, disputed this claim on Twitter saying that they didn’t “cancel” the protest.
No we didn’t https://t.co/9TnFMO1Qmq
— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) August 12, 2020
Meanwhile, in Richmond, Virginia, The Washington Post reported that residents became more than uneasy with looting and violence since the most recent outbreak of rioting over the last week.
According to one Richmond resident and her husband, attempts to ask the protesters to relocate so her family could sleep were met with cries of “no justice, no peace.”
“I have been very sympathetic to [fighting] injustice and inequality, but it seems like right now the protesting and the destruction of private property has nothing to do with any of that,” Nuckolls added.
According to the Post, “a group of about 50 protesters vandalized downtown businesses and smashed windows at the city’s John Marshall Courthouse, causing what Mayor Levar Stoney said was hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.”
“Regular citizens [feel] caught in the middle,” said Charlie Diradour, a Monument Avenue citizen. “This movement started to take the statues down and many of us — I would say a majority of us who live on Monument Avenue — were completely down with that movement, all up until they started breaking s—. And that was a bridge too far for many of us. Because what does it benefit society to have the right to have your voice heard if your next move is to break a window of the Omni Hotel, the John Marshall court building?”
According to Fox 12 in Portland, many are worried for their safety as rioting and violence permeate their neighborhood close to the Portland Police Association.
“It really feels like a war zone,” Marta, a resident told Fox.
Other residents are feeling the physical effects of the rioting as well.
“It’s scary. We’re not sure what is going to happen and just the destruction. You know, if they were marching and so on, I’d be out there marching with them,” Tina Henderson, another resident said.
While many in the neighborhood feel the desire for the violence to calm down, many aren’t sure what to do.
“Of course I want the city to do more but I don’t know what the answer is, you know if I were the mayor I don’t know what I’d be doing,” Henderson said.
