Yesterday Denver Colorado, standing in solidarity with Minneapolis, Chicago, and too many others, three separate marches. I am a journalist who has been following these marches for almost a year now. Here are the pictures I snagged while documenting this movement.
There is always a dog in the crowd.
The first gathering started at noon, and was organized by a youth led initiative, so there were a lot of teachers and children.
The group made a mock graveyard on the capitol lawn that was visually overwhelming even with the whitewash effect from the snow, in fact for me this seemed even more poignant that it was harder to see because of the whiteness. Here are a few pictures of that graveyard.
Safety volunteers block traffic for the marching protesters.
The kids that organized this event had a great turn out, I would guess 2500 people.
The crowd headed from the capitol building eastbound in all lanes down Colfax to the district 6 dpd.
Lock up the cathedral "the heathens are coming." This particular church has had many protest issues due to it's location near the district 6 dpd.
In front of the dpd district 6 building, chants of "quit your job!" and "Fuck 12!" could be heard throughout the crowd.
After 15 minutes or so the youths led the crowd west to the 16th street mall, a posh outdoor mall which is starkly contrasted by the overwhelming homeless population.
There were a lot of people with a lot of opinions on how to solve these problems.
This "whirly bird" had a long shift that day, and was later replaced with a fixed wing aircraft.
When the crowd got to the 16th street mall, they found some resistance. This person threw a candy bar that flew right in front of my face. He ran into the crowd and acted out in a way that made me believe he was having a mental issue of some sort. He looked like he was going to assault a few people, but I don't think he did, just scared a bunch of folks.
I feel for this man, in our country mental health is still a kind of taboo subject.
Every event of this sort, that I have been to, in the last year, and there have been a lot, I have seen at least 1 skate or longboard. Longboards, and science are real!
16th street mall filled to the gills with protestors.
When they got to Laramar street they headed south to Laramar square, an even more posh part of downtown that has been closed off to traffic for covid restaurant out door dining provisions.
The crowd flooded Laramar square and most of the patrons fled, I assume, due to the uncomfortable feeling this crowd emanated.
After 20 minutes of chants, the crowd headed to 14th street and then east back towards the capitol building.
I gather this dude and his homies are not fond of Michael Hancock.
The crowd marched to the Denver Courthouse across from the capitol building. When they got there I could see another 2,000 or so people at the capitol for a march organized by the local PLS chapter.
I decided I would head over to see what PLS was planning. When I got there I saw Joel Ibraham addressing the crowd.
And the crowd was quite large.
After addressing the crowd, Joel and the PSL crew led protestors in a peaceful march.
The PSL crowd grew as a lot of protestors from the earlier march joined PSL.
I have seen this gentleman many times this last year, but I never seen him beat his drum to smithereens like he did yesterday.
It was good to see Joel, he and a couple other PSL members got charged and arrested last year on trumped up charges of "Kidnapping." The crew was looking at upwards of 20 years in prison for leading a crowd to an Aurora pd building and surrounding it. The cops said they couldn't leave and because of that they had been unjustly imprisoned. How ironic, I was there, and I have a hard time understanding these charges, it was a peaceful demonstration until the cops started shooting gas and rubber bullets a protestors.
At the end of this march Joel asked the crowd to do one more thing, and that is to let the world know Denver stands in solidarity with Chicago, and Minneapolis, and that Denver will continue to fight for justice until justice for all is served.
Thank you for reading my post.