a detailed and sobering account. Well written and worth your time to read.
"Shared:
On Sunday, May 31st I witnessed first hand the riots in Raleigh, North Carolina. It wasn’t pleasant but I wanted to see for myself who these people were and what was occurring. I wanted to see things on the street with a perspective towards the strategy and tactics of protestors and law enforcement. Seeing things first hand without any filters was elucidating.
I was able to move about the city by car and on foot and used direct emergency communication for details. For the most part people left me alone and I was able to watch and observe what was taking place. I spent about 4-5 hours doing so. I saw up close the actions of the rioters and the responses of the police. More than a few times I felt the brunt of pyrotechnics used from both sides, and multiple times encountered clouds of tear gas. It was a chaotic situation but it was possible to make out many details as the situation evolved.
The majority of people I saw were young, about 10% were gawkers and college kids out for a thrill, about 10% were what I would qualify as bad apples with no apparent political intentions just out to take advantage of whatever might transpire, about 40% were there for what they clearly felt was a legitimate protest of injustice, and about 40% were antifa types (actual antifa, black blok anarchists, and related affinity groups) working to use everyone else to fight the police, loot, burn, and cause mayhem. Most of the antifa types were white. Outside of a few media, law enforcement, and a small handful of people that work as "mediators" in some situations, I did not see any other groups present, including counter protestors or other agitators as is being frequently reported.
The protest began around 5pm and was initially peaceful as the news frequently likes to focus on. It should be noted that peaceful does not mean the crowd wasn't unruly and confrontational; the amount of threatening signs and comments and chants leveled at police, in some cases in their faces, was pretty intense and ongoing. One tactic used is to agitate to provoke a police response (an arrest or use of force) to which the protestors immediately react by filming for propaganda as well as to stoke the crowd into a "they are coming for us" mentality. The law enforcement I saw did not generally respond to the provocations used and were pretty professional, almost reserved. Within an hour it became very obvious those present had plans to do more than be peaceful. From about 6pm on things got very intense and increasingly more violent. The crowd frequently broke into multiple groups and moved in different directions, a tactic often used to stretch law enforcement thin and cause confusion regarding intent. Until around 11pm police for the most part were acting reactively and had not been trying to clear each block, hold that ground gained, and disperse the crowd completely. They did use tear gas and flash bang devices to clear specific areas or when a certain group of protestors became a serious threat. Groups of officers organized into “push teams” operated to clear designated areas as needed. Though arrests were made mass arrests were not.
Elements of any riot can be spontaneous and change with a range of factors such as weather, time, size of crowd, police response, the local population, density of the area, means of egress and ingress, etc, and individuals in a riot can and do act completely independently. The psychology of mob activity is a long studied and documented phenomenon. That said, the majority of what I saw were clear coordinated efforts by differing levels of people part of or related to antifa. It was fairly easy to spot their coordinated movements and the actions they led. I witnessed their use of hand held FRS radios for communication, their use of drones for observation and harassment, their use of high powered lasers to disable or harm police and their vehicles (noted repeatedly on police radio), designated individuals with medical and tear gas response supplies, tactical coordination by individuals out of the fray but clearly calling shots, and empty pallets placed in the areas of the protest (many people are reporting these being found in cities around the US). None of those elements would be found at a spontaneous protest about legitimate concerns by people expressing their first amendment rights to protest grievances.
I saw communist, anarchist and revolutionary flags and banners, and the individuals carrying them made their goals obvious; insurrection. They directly and indirectly were communicating with and leading the skirmishing of others that were dressing and acting similar. There is absolutely no question antifa was behind the riots I saw occurring in Raleigh. I strongly suspect from what I have been seeing and reading the same can be said about nearly every other city in the US as well. Antifa may be a loosely based and amorphous group, but on the ground they are coordinated, they have communications and equipment, they are planning, and they are using elaborate and advanced tactics. The suggestions that small groups of outside right wing agitators are responsible for the scale of violence and damage being seen was not evidenced by anything I personally witnessed.
The sentiments fueling the protests are certainly legitimate and they are capitalizing on them to spur large groups into direction-action style violence. Mobs of all sorts can get violent and loot, but rarely do they involve such coordinated and targeted attacks, and rarely do they last multiple nights across multiple cities all experiencing similar events. That stems from a concerted effort by core groups of hard core extremists who are using the weight of actual concerned protestors to back fill what their total numbers could not otherwise make up. But make no mistake, together they are creating an extremely violent and extremely dangerous situation.
Notably, these types of protestors (the revolutionary extremists) have gained experience from a decade of protests about everything from Wall Street, to police, to war, to general left wing issues. Antifa type extremists have for many years used the cover of other protests to push their violent agenda. In most instances that resulted in broken windows, damaged vehicles, political graffiti, and localized destruction. Rarely did it ever occur in more than one or two connected areas or for mores than a night or two. They’ve learned from their experiences since 2008. In some cities revolutionary book stores give classes both openly and covertly on protest tactics and techniques. With the help of a willing mob they are now using all sorts of new means (and many not so new) to wreak havoc and violence on a massive scale. I can not be any clearer: antifa, black blok anarchists, and their direct affinity groups are specifically focused on violent revolution, abolishing police, and crushing capitalism. The pain of the death of George Floyd is real, and they are using it to further their own revolutionary political agenda. That may sound hyperbolic, and I wish it was, but it isn't. Their slogans, their flags, their banners, their statements online, their flyers, their past history, and their actions on the ground all make clear what they want. This isn't chic college angst or pent up anger, this is an expression of revolutionary violence on an scale not previously witnessed in the United States.
This isn’t likely to end until people get a better understanding of what is happening, and ideally before it's too late. I don't know if these actions will spread to more suburban and rural areas but that in part depends on how the leaders in our impacted cities respond right now. Legitimate protest leaders need to completely and unequivocally distance themselves from anyone willing to engage in violence of any sort. Our civic leaders need to step up and put a stop to this. Curfews need to be set and the streets need to be a no-go zone for rioters. Resorting to phalanxes of National Guard on our streets is a sad but necessary step because things have gotten seriously out of control. Police rules of engagement need to immediately switch from defensive and reactive formations and crowd techniques to offensive and proactive. You can not control a brazen and dynamic, coordinated group of revolutionary rioters by only responding to their actions and giving them freedom of movement away from their direct targets.
It is my hope people will quickly become aware of what is actually occurring on our streets in these riots. The role of antifa and their affinity groups must be understood. We have no freedom when extremists are actively engaged in threatening the basic rights of all Americans through their violent assaults."
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