Olympia residents clean up debris from Sunday night protest
Individuals gathered to sweep the streets and pick up trash Monday afternoon in downtown Olympia, after protests turned destructive Sunday night.
“They (the city) cleaned up really early this morning and did a really good job, but I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything sharp on the ground,” said Cameron Daniels, who owns Espresso Rescue in Lacey. “There is going to be a protest here today and I just want to make sure it’s safe for the protesters.”
Daniel lives on the east side of Olympia and watched the protests Sunday night live on Facebook. He spent several hours sweeping Monday morning.
On the other end of downtown, mother-son duo Alex Chambers and Karen Trainor brought buckets and trash bags to pick up trash. The two started at Percival Landing and planned to make their way toward City Hall.
“It started peaceful and then they broke the window at City Hall,” said Chambers, who also avoided the protests but watched live from home on Facebook. “I was thinking, probably not a good idea to go down there tonight, but maybe tomorrow to clean up their mess to show that we care. It’s the way you go about it that shows you care.”
Chambers said he was cleaning on Monday because he cares about Olympia.
“It turned into just hate and anger,” Chambers said. “People do things they don’t mean when they’re angry. I’m pretty sure most of the people came down to protest police brutality, but then there are the bad apples who ruined it for everyone else when they started destroying things.”
What began as a peaceful protest Sunday night turned violent after one person broke a window at Olympia City Hall. In a livestream video posted to the Facebook group Thurston Co. Scanner, News, & Weather Blog, multiple other protesters can be heard urging the person to stop.
Officers from the Olympia Police Department then exited the police department and blocked protesters from getting close to Olympia City Hall, standing between them and the building at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Cherry Street. The protest ended after midnight, when Olympia Police say 13 people were arrested.
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 2:13 PM.