Account of events at protest and photograph of forehead wound.
I arrived at the Free Stamp, shortly after 2 pm, as the protest was gathering mass and beginning to make its move. For the record, I was unarmed, having only two bottles of water on me, which also for the record, I recycled (at least as far as the city considers recycling to exist in the first place) later and did not throw at any officers. Having attended various protests and large-scale gatherings downtown — from Obama’s 2008 speech to the initial BLM Tamir Rice protests to the RNC — the day was generally proceeding as normal. Until that day, the city’s recent history of peaceable assembly was an assurance that violence may not break out the way it had in various American cities in the prior days. The march led along from the Free Stamp to Public Square and to the Justice Center, as other protests had in the past.
Just after 4 pm, as the march, still seemingly thousands deep, had arrived at the Justice Center, was when I began to hear distant explosions. I was standing on the corner of St. Clair and Ontario, and the explosions seemed as though they were coming from the opposite corner of the building, toward its main entrance at W. 3rd and Lakeside. Rumblings from the crowd about tear gas began to circulate, as I saw riot cops make their way down the road across Lakeside.
I will make this perfectly clear: up until this point, the only aggression I witnessed on the side of the protest was some spray paint tagging at the Justice Center.
I will make this also clear: I heard no dispersal notice whatsoever. I stand by the legal observers’ claims that any attempt at a dispersal notice was insufficient, and based on the footage I saw, seemed to be pointed at minimal volume at a minuscule selection of the overall mass of protesters. It served the same function as a public affairs disclaimer on the radio, where it should have been a resounding civic announcement, ideally one belying an understanding a need for change and peaceful dispersal. The opposite proved to be true.
I began to make my way toward the entrance of the Justice Center, as to see what was happening and provide any assistance I could in aiding aiding injured protesters. By the time I walked down the street to the corner of Ontario and Lakeside, I saw a series of horseback officers, which briefly allayed some fears of escalated police violence, as I assumed they wouldn’t risk injury to the horses.
I was wrong about such an assumption. Shortly after, more and more riot cops began arriving at the Justice Center entrance, launching tear gas cans and concussion grenades. I began seeing various people of all ages and backgrounds both head toward and leave the front of the protesters, violently coughing and desperately pouring water over their faces, or being carried out by fellow protesters. I watched as the brave medics began tending to these peoples’ injuries, as police continued to ruthlessly attack the very people who pay their salaries.
At this point, a police car sitting on Ontario (*side note* it seems odd to me that a police car would be casually sitting unattended outside the Justice Center on the day of a massive protest… just saying…) began to catch fire, as more people, including myself, began making their way toward the Justice Center entrance. By now, tear gas and concussion grenades were landing in my vicinity, and in the vicinity of the general groups of protesters. By now, also, the graffiti tagging had turned to the breaking of some Justice Center windows and a parking garage attendee stand, although this cannot take precedent over the damage being caused by tear gas, concussion grenades, and eventually “rubber” bullets.
By now, I was breathing in tear gas, and concussion grenades were exploding inches away from my body. I was in front of the Justice Center, and — fueled by the adrenaline of experiencing bodily harm at the hands of people whose salaries I pay, in part — asserted my constitutional rights to verbally express my anger at this situation. There was a 15-year-old girl standing next to me at this point, yelling at officers that they are twice her age, wondering why they are doing this to their citizenry. She raised a lot of good points and I felt obligated to maintain my position there for some time.
Some other things I witnessed:
Earlier on, around 4 pm, I witnessed a young white man attempt to take down an American flag, at which point, a group of Black individuals quickly called on him to stop, explaining that it was not his place to commit such an act.
I saw extremely brave individuals risk bodily harm to clear tear gas canisters from the way of unarmed protesters, who again, showed up to peaceably assemble in demonstration of their First Amendment rights.
I saw a glass bottle fly at one point, hitting a protester, at which point, he and several others addressed the person throwing it with assertive directions of “Stop throwing glass bottles.” The vast majority of projectiles I’d seen on the protesters’ ends were plastic water bottles. If a riot-gear-clad police force’s response to being hit by water bottles is to fire “rubber” bullets and tear gas, then the entire system needs a complete overhaul.
I saw children and young teenagers subjected to the aimless, random, and distant launching of weapons of war, and chemicals banned in the Geneva Convention, which seems to have lost all meaning over the last hundred years.
At around 6 pm, unarmed and unprepared for violence at the behest of the state and city that I call home, my anxiety got the best of me and I began to move away from the group and make my way home. Fatigue settled in, along with the sharp fear that I would watch someone die at the hands of the Cleveland Police Department, and be unable to do anything about it.
In the following days, a particularly exposed part of my forehead near my hairline began to experience bizarre peeling and bundling of moisture (pus? chemicals? not sure, honestly), eventually corroding parts of my skin and flaking off in a way somewhat reminiscent of Jeff Goldblum in “The Fly” (see attached photo, from the evening of 5/31/20.) It felt like a more intense, lingering sunburn, but far more corrosive and unusual in how the freshly dead skin would peel from my forehead. After research determining that this is a common effect of tear gas, I began treating the injury as such, and after about a week, it healed, leaving a slight burn scar.
I also experienced various night terrors, increased suicidal ideation and depression, and other effects of PTSD following the violent events at the hands of the Cleveland Police Department on May 30, 2020.
I’ve kept up with local government since, and it is profoundly disheartening to witness Mayor Frank Jackson and Police Chief Calvin Williams deny and refuse accountability and attempt to blame the very citizenry whom they ordered to attack. Their do-nothing, business-as-usual, pass-the-buck response to this civic crisis would give anyone with a moral compass the pause as to whether or not they are capable of facing the incredible and necessary task at hand of redistributing Cleveland’s police budget to other crucial and underfunded city departments. I’ve seen Council make small efforts to address this issue and seek alternative methods of safety, but this is not enough, given the lengths of cruelty with which the city proved it would go to within hours on May 30, 2020.
I would also be curious to see how these accounts match up with those from other cities on the same day. In recounting the day with a friend from Seattle, for example, we found the timestamp of events and escalation to line up suspiciously.