Back in June some keyboard warriors announced that they were a militia and were coming to Louisville to take the city back. Needless to say, this got people a little excited and tensions were high on the anointed day. LMPD put bike rack type barriers up on both sides of one street to keep us separated and blocked the surrounding streets with dump trucks in anticipation of their arrival but the militia no-showed.
While the militia may have no-showed, the community did not. Injustice Square Park (formerly referred to as Jefferson Square Park) that day was the nearest thing I've seen to an armed camp. Kalashnikovs and Armalites, shotguns and scoped rifles, and an array of pistols and edged weapons were all in abundance. Clergy wearing stoles, green hatted legal observers, and copious amounts of cops were also present.
Come the appointed time for the militia's appearance there were about 3 people (other than media) standing on their side of the barriers, considering how little they apparently knew about the situation in Louisville this was probably for the best. The crowd continued to line the barriers for a while even still, with the cops facing off from the street.
After a while we started to believe that the militia really wasn't coming and many of us set out on a march around downtown. While taking a break for water and from the sun we got word (which proved to be untrue) that the militia had showed up at the park while we were out marching and we immediately made our way back. It was at this point that I heard something I never expected to hear on a protest march, one of the leaders called out for "Everyone with firearms to the front!" (At an earlier point in the march he'd stopped us and had everyone without weapons give a signal...you could count their numbers on your fingers) We split up and made our way down to parallel streets towards the park to make it more difficult to stop us. Fortunately the information was false and when we arrived the cops were finishing up taking the barriers down.
Speeches and chants followed our return and I hung out in the park for a while longer before my pandemic partner and I decided to call it a day. We went home and ate and unwound, happy that the day had went so much better than we had feared it would that morning. Relieved, and tired from the early morning and the adrenaline we went to bed early that night. The next morning I awoke to worried text messages and discovered that tragedy had struck. A few hours after we had left the park a man had started shooting into the park, killing 27 year old photographer and protester Tyler Gerth (other protesters returned fire and wounded and detained the shooter). Prior to the shooting a considerable number of people had been camping in the park as part of the protest, they and the medics and those providing food had numerous tents and equipment in the park but in the aftermath LMPD forced everyone from the park and then had city workers throw everything in dumpsters and haul it off to the city dump. Much of it wound up being damaged or destroyed and added insult to the injury of the shooting.
