More than 10,000 pack downtown for ‘No Kings’ protest

Thousands of people crowded Riverfront Park and marched through downtown Spokane, joining millions more across the country in the “No Kings” protest movement against President Donald Trump.

The protests remained peaceful all day until about 9:15 p.m. when several dozen people squared off with police near City Hall. Officers deployed smoke canisters and fired pepperballs to disperse the crowd. Some of those who didn’t leave were arrested.

For much of late Saturday afternoon, the sidewalks along Spokane Falls Boulevard were stacked 20 deep in many places with people holding signs and chanting from the Spokane Convention Center to City Hall as dozens of cars and trucks driving past blew their horns in support. Crowd estimation was difficult with protesters spread throughout the park and parts of downtown, but some estimates topped 20,000.

The protest was bolstered by thousands of like-minded attendees of Spokane Pride, which started hours earlier with a big parade and festival in the park, including the Stonewall Rally, which focused on LGBTQ+ rights at the Lilac Bowl in the park.

The crowds unfurled hundreds of signs at about the same time as soldiers, tanks and other military machinery paraded in Washington, D.C., to mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.

It was dwarfed by protests in major cities, such as Los Angeles, where tens of thousands of people protested, and in Seattle, where about 70,000 protesters were estimated. No Kings events also happened in small towns, such as in Pullman, where more than 1,000 people protested. Another 300 or more people convened in Moses Lake to the delight of resident Jill Springer Forrest, who didn’t expect such a turnout in what she described as ruby-red Grant County.

The parade in Washington, D.C., will cost between $25 million and $45 million. It also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday and with Flag Day.

Retired U.S. Marine Byron Schneider, of Newman Lake, said he was appalled by the Trump administration’s deployment of active-duty troops to an American city – Los Angeles – and described the military parade as a waste of taxpayer resources akin to what’s seen in countries ruled by dictatorships. He worries sending troops to L.A. was just a precursor for more authoritarian moves to come.

Those are just a few of the many Trump administration decisions that led Schneider to participate in his first demonstration, he said. He did so while carrying a sign that read “Didn’t we reject kings in 1776?”

“If we don’t stand up now, we’ll never stand a chance,” Schneider said.

More than 10,000 packed the Lilac Bowl in Riverfront Park for the commemorative Stonewall rally, a peaceful protest and homage to the 1969 Stonewall Uprising that triggered the modern LGBTQ+ movement.

The rally began with a few musical performances, then speakers took the stage to speak in turns about how Trump’s policies have hurt LGBTQ+, immigrant, agricultural and Indigenous communities, to name a few. Speakers included Eastern Washington University professor and former longtime Spokane Tribal attorney Margo Hill, union advocate and perennial local Democratic candidate Ted Cummings, and Bishop Gretchen Rehberg of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane.

The Diocese became the largest sponsor of Spokane Pride this year after Rehberg provided $10,000 to make up for the departure of several larger corporate sponsors from years past.

“It’s been so good for the recovering Christian in me, this lovely partnership that we have,” Spokane Pride Director Matthew Danielson said before embracing Rehberg on stage.

“I am here because I believe God is here, because I believe that God dances at drag shows, Jesus blesses chosen families, and I believe the spirit assists in transitions,” Rehberg said. “And we, you and I are divinely and fabulously made, and we reflect God’s image.”

Rehberg said the church stands behind those fighting oppression. “Jesus Christ challenged the oppressive governments of his day, and so do we,” Rehberg said. “And bishops of the past forced kings to kneel, and we will do the same.”

While speeches continued as thousands of protesters began marching around 4 p.m. the short distance from the Lilac Bowl to the streets next to the park’s red wagon. Hundreds of signs denouncing fascism raised high as protesters milled in circles to the beat of drums.

The band was led by a man playing a tuba with painted red flames while carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution. The crowd screamed along to anti-fascist protest song “Bella Ciao.”

Barbara Wodynski said she grew up in Chicago and demonstrated over the Vietnam War.

“The atmosphere now, there’s fear. And that is so different. I didn’t feel this country was afraid until now,” Wodynski said. “We have grandchildren, and I would like to see them as blessed as we were.”

Greg Soares, an U.S. Army veteran who served from 1999 to 2008, said the times have changed so drastically that “it’s no longer about what is best for Americans.”

If a service member was opposed to the war that took place under former President George W. Bush, it “still felt like we could do what was right.” Now, Soares said, it feels like it’s more about an agenda.

“When I signed up, there wasn’t such a backstory with politics. It was there, sure. But now, it’s much more at the forefront,” he said at the protest Saturday. “If your politics aren’t in line with what he wants, well, you may just not get promoted.”

Gemma Palmiter drove from Coeur d’Alene to participate in the protest.

“So many innocent people are being abused and deported. It’s not just undocumented people. It can be anybody,” she said.

Palmiter supported the protest at Wednesday at Spokane’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility that resulted in more than 30 arrests.

“People were forced to riot because of ICE and police escalation. It is my hope that one day ICE is abolished,” she said.

The crowd, while enormous and loud, remained mostly peaceful until after 9 p.m. One police officer high-fived a protester for clearing people out of the way so EMTs could come in. Another talked with the organizer as he yelled into a megaphone, and the organizer responded by asking protesters to give the officer a round of applause for his assistance.

Around 5 p.m., a couple of thousand demonstrators took to the streets chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets.” They meandered through downtown, stopping by the federal courthouse for a few speeches before making the long trek across the Monroe Street Bridge and over the Post Street Bridge back to Riverfront Park. Spokane police provided intermittent street closures as the crowd worked their way through downtown by following the demonstrators on bikes and calling for cars to divert traffic.

Several marchers rejoined the Pride festivities, or left the demonstration when it arrived back at the park. A few hundred kept marching in loops.

One car at the intersection of Spokane Falls Boulevard and Howard Street was honking at the cars in front of it as they let protesters go by. For minutes, the person in the car laid on the horn until a man on a scooter blocked the car from moving. The person kept tapping the brakes to lean into him until turning around and speeding away.

The “No Kings” demonstrators were met with few counterprotesters over their many hours of marching. Several groups of less than five people faced off against the protesters with signs and flags indicating support for Trump.

One counterprotester raised a Confederate flag in the air as they walked on the sidewalk near the anti-Trump demonstrators. This protester said her flag was “not a racial thing” but represented her “belief in old-style America.”

For a few hours a crowd marched throughout downtown as police scrambled on bicycles and in cars to block roads to keep them safe as they worked to predict which way they would go.

The marchers worked their way up and down downtown streets for hours, until only around 100 were left. Eventually, they were headed off by dozens of regional law enforcement officers on bikes, in cars and a SWAT response vehicle. Spokane police gave several “public safety” orders to disperse, which turned into declarations of an unlawful assembly and orders to disperse around 9 p.m.

Law enforcement officers on Spokane Falls Boulevard downtown library issued to declaration and lobbed their first round of smoke. They pushed the crowd back in spurts, making a handful of arrests. Around 9:15 p.m., the officers lobbed another, heavier round of smoke and could be heard firing dozens of less lethal rounds, despite the vast majority of protesters staying on public sidewalks at a distance from the police line.

Spokane police left the scene around 9:30 p.m. after the group retreated back to Riverfront Park. The group began marching again on downtown sidewalks as the officers pedaled and drove away.

Adding to the tension on the national scale was the Saturday morning assassination of a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota and the attempted assassination of another in what local police have described as a politically motivated attack. A manhunt is underway for the shooter, believed to be 57-year-old Vance Boelter, and all “No Kings” protests in the state were canceled after several promotional fliers were found in Boelter’s vehicle.

Locally, Spokane’s elected officials and community members are still dealing with the fallout of a Wednesday immigration protest sparked by the federal detainment of two asylum-seekers who entered the country legally, did not have a criminal record and had full-time employment at a Walmart in Airway Heights. The 10-hour attempt to stop federal officials from leaving a facility on East Cataldo Avenue and Washington Street ended with law enforcement deploying smoke, pepperballs and “less lethal” munitions to disperse hundreds of fleeing protesters, and more than 30 arrests outside an ICE facility near Riverfront Park.