4/19 Protest Report.

Easter weekend protest was pretty peaceful. Mostly.

This is the latest action organized by reddit.com/r/OcalaBlueDots and the antifa collective I belong to, ODA - Ocala Demands Action. Together we are working to build a non-violent MLK style civil rights movement and engage in community building locally. This was part of another nationwide movement of protests that are part of the /r/50501 movement.

The protest was scheduled to start at noon. I got there at 10:30 and we already had two protestors. They are regulars. (My son pictured also - he has been having fun.)

The rest of ODA and OcalaBlueDots showed up shortly after. We got volunteers for Road Captains. They kept protestors from crossing at the wrong places and not walking in the road. Then we got two more volunteers for security detail, so Chris and I didn’t have to do it all. By the way, I really like working with him. He has a sharp eye, he knows a lot of the undercover cops and local racists by sight, and he is pretty calm. He’s a good “battle buddy” as we called our partners in the Army.

Erika speaking before we got going with the first 60 or so that were there. People hit the streets at 11:40.

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At our peak, we had 600, but as soon as we hit that peak some of older folks left to beat the heat. There was also the beer and wine festival downtown right after our protest, and I think a few wanted to get a jump start. Lol. We stayed pretty consistently around 450 for most of the protest. We knew it would be smaller than the 1,500 we got last time because of Easter weekend, so we were very happy to see this many. We only expected maybe 100 or 200.

Don’t tell me you are too disabled to protest.

Also, this lady. Lol.

Quick note: I want to apologize. First, I should have shaved. (You’ll see - I look like a cat wearing a go pro at points.) Second, I found out that my body camera needs multiple SIM cards for a two hour protest if I’m going to get to keep all the video. All that to say that I missed some of what I’ll write about. Third - turn down your volume. The clips are LOUD at points.

Our first agitators were a group of joggers or pedestrians that were working their way through the protestors on the other side of the street and were yelling at us. They left with no further trouble though. We had just hit 200 protestors at this point. I’m talking to Chris as it opens. You will see my friend Eric as well - he comes to all these with his upside down “in distress” flag. He’s funny, and a real Honey Badger - he gives no fucks.

Next up a while later was this guy in his work truck. The body camera didn’t pick it up, but he was yelling at us about how great Trump was. Real classy - doing that shit in a work truck. Eric represents.

Then some daffy woman comes and drives the wrong way down the road. Scared the shit out of me for a second - I wasn’t sure if this was an attack on us using a car or just an idiot. Thankfully I didn’t have to shoot someone, but I had my hand on my pistol for a second. Getting run over my some angry asshole is a legitimate fear. At this point I had just counted 450 of us.

The first real agitator though was this guy. We picked him up earlier, and three of us followed him as he went down the line trying to engage protestors, but we kept shooing him along. At the end, we had this exchange. He was trying to tell all of us that we were racists and loved the KKK because they are Democrats. The bases of the Republican Party and Democrat party switched decades ago, meaning the racists left the Democratic party and became Republicans. Anyone who calls us racists is not there to have an honest debate. Here he is trying to start with one of the security volunteers. Chris was there too, as he always is. He’s like a little ninja.

After this exchange, he showed up about ten minutes later. We again just followed him around and wouldn’t let him talk to anyone, and he left for good finally. This was about halfway through the protest. Things were fine other than being flipped off several times for the next 40 minutes or so.

I see a couple of guys with a microphone and a camera talking to folks, so I ask if they want to talk to the organizers. It turns out it is a leftist YouTuber (https://www.youtube.com/@MaxKuhn1) who is out covering the protest. He talked to several of us and should hopefully have something up in the next day or two. I love the fact that someone was out amplifying our voices a bit.

Fresh water showed up. You can see Amber in the yellow hi-vis vest to the side of the other car acting as a Road Captain. You can hear her giving me a hard time for going to help with the water. A little humor is always needed at these things. They are tiring.

Then Chris calls for backup. I get up to where he is at, and there is some dude in the road, completely unhinged, triggered HARD about our protest. He initially thought we were a pro-Trump protest (I guess he can’t read) and then lost his shit when he found out it wasn’t. Screaming, yelling, cussing, threats. All of it. Thankfully, the cops sitting there got him to leave. He wouldn’t at first, and almost caught himself a pair of cuffs and a charge. I’m glad OPD took care of that, or Chris and I would have, and it was looking ugly. I don’t like cops and you know that if you read my stuff, but OPD handled that well and they gave us no problems at all today. So hats off to them.

Our last problem came at the very end. A guy in a little dick truck (that is a lifted pickup these assholes drive) came by with a flag of Trump giving the double middle finger, and the text on the flag said “You Missed.” What? Who missed? The TWO REPUBLICANS who tried to kill him? It wasn’t us you stupid asshole. He did six laps around the square, but was never even brave enough roll down the window and cuss at us. I feel sooooooo owned by his inaccurate flag. Please sir, please don’t wave your Trump flag at me. Lol.

I left about 2:30 after wrapping up some business with everyone so I could give a fan of mine from Reddit a lift and get home myself. Roughly 50 or so protestors were still out there, but it was “officially” over. Shortly after I left there was a confrontation between someone and some of our protestors that got pretty heated, but the ladies that were still on site from our groups took care of it with no problems, so I’m glad that got settled. We also collected a good bit of cash to put towards future permits so that we can have powered speakers and all that. We want to get community leaders and such to come out and speak to the crowd.

Another good, peaceful action with no violence and this time no real threats of violence like last time. Mark the racist from last protest wasn’t there. Things went really well. I’m excited to see how Ocala responds to our next two protests in May and how the respond to the community building efforts we are putting out there.

I’ll keep putting in work if y’all keep showing up to protest. See y’all in the streets.

#OneLove #22ADay Slava Ukraini! Heróyam sláva!