From Amazing Grace to burning cop cars: how Columbia spiraled out of control

Until 2 p.m. the most compelling story I had heard all day came from Laura and Richard Green.

The father and daughter duo from Lexington, S.C., were marching down Main Street peacefully protesting alongside thousands who were voicing their disgust at the death of yet another unarmed black man. The killing of George Floyd — an African American who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck — brought them to Main Street on Saturday, but Richard, 62, had been a civil rights protester since the late ‘60s, he said.

The U.S. Marine Corps veteran remembers the progress the civil rights movement brought. Now, he feels all that progress is unraveling.

“I feel like we’ve taken a step backward,” Richard Green told me. “All the gains we’ve had all seem for naught.”

His daughter Laura also felt “overwhelmed and exhausted at having to fight to exist.”

They were angry, and so were those marching toward the State House beside them.

There was anger, but there was also social harmony among the diverse crowd marching to the State House. Many of the protesters were people of color, and a noticeable number were also white, something Laura Green and at least one of the protesters who spoke during the rally publicly praised as a positive factor. There were middle-aged white women holding signs saying “Karens against police brutality” and a young Hispanic woman holding a sign that said “Latinx stand with black lives,” referring to the gender neutral word for Latinos.

The protesters resolved to organize, vote, call their lawmakers. They sang “Amazing Grace” in hopes that better days were to come.

But then the protesters moved to the courtyard of the Columbia Police Department headquarters on Washington Street. Like those at the State House, they were angry, they yelled at the officers and many challenged the African American officers to put down their badge and gun and join them.

It was tense, but peaceful.

Now, when you look at riots on TV, they look like explosions — buildings on fire, people crying from tear gas, bloody and bruised faces. But Saturday’s protest was not an explosion, but rather a forest fire, and it started with the smallest spark: several protesters throwing water bottles.

Immediately, many of the protest leaders yelled at the people throwing water bottles, saying that throwing things would only escalate the situation and result in injured protesters.

But the bottle throwing persisted. While that was happening, protesters took down the South Carolina and the American flags from the front of the building. They tore up the state flag and burned the U.S. flag.

One police officer, who was given a water bottle by other officers, poured his own water out on the sweltering hot and cloudless day, grinning at the protesters while he did it. After that, those throwing bottles targeted him, hitting him square in the head with an unopened water bottle. The crowd laughed and the officer shook it off with another grin.

Then someone threw a rock. And then another rock. Then a bigger rock.

Then some commotion happened behind me, and when I turned around, some of the protesters were trailing a young white man, apparently wanting to fight him, while other protesters screamed at their compatriots to let him walk away. The kid got knocked down and eventually ran away, the fight being broken up by police sirens.

The protest had now spilled onto Washington Street.

A group of about 10 police officers were positioned on Washington Street, and protesters kept throwing rocks at them. Some protesters, seeing the escalation, formed a line between the police and the protesters to try to calm things down.

It didn’t work.

There was an officer on the corner of the phalanx and he got the heat from a group of protesters.

Some threw rocks at him. One person went up to him and pretended to throw something at him at point-blank range. The officer ducked and some of the protesters laughed at him. Then, one man sprinted at him as if they were going to attack and then stopped, clearly scaring the outnumbered officer. Then officer responded in kind, charging back — and leaving his formation — but then stopped after a few steps.

An angry crowd nearly surrounded the officer and he fired his pepper spray and hit several protesters. At some point that officer got hurt. One of my colleagues said the officer was hit in the leg by debris and he was escorted away with the help of his fellow officers.

Protesters advanced down Washington Street to where they were close enough to hit police cars with rocks. They cracked the window of a cruiser.

Seeing they were outnumbered, the police retreated, which drew jeers from the crowd. An officer nearly ran over a protester trying to get away.

The police had left, but there was still an SUV in the middle of the street. A few people smashed the windows, ran on top and began jumping up and down.

After a few minutes, the police returned and fired “less-than lethal” rounds from a shotgun which scared everyone back to the courtyard. More and more police showed up from Richland County Sheriff’s Department, S.C. Highway Patrol and the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division.

Unlike the previous officers, who held orange shotguns with the words “less-than lethal” written on the side, these officers were carrying normally colored military-style rifles, so it wasn’t clear whether they had normal bullets or something “less-than lethal.”

Later, protesters found three unattended police cars on Lincoln Street. They spray painted anti-police slogans on it. One man used a shiv to pop the tires. Someone tried to rip the doors off. Someone set the middle car on fire. Most of the protesters watched, held signs, and yes, some cheered.

Later in the night a white kid was punched. Hard. I ran over and he was unconscious, bleeding from the head. Several protesters told me he had tried to call the police.

Another police car caught on fire, which ignited a tree dangerously close to a power transformer. Ashes fell as far away as Main Street, where the peaceful protest had passed through just hours before.

Several people posed for pictures in front of the burning cop cars.

I could go on, but at this point I want to make something clear.

For every one protester who punched someone or burned a cop car there were 10 protesters who were yelling at people for escalating the situation and were trying to be peaceful.

For every police officer who seemingly lost his temper, there were 10 who stayed put, ignored the epithets and even some who had constructive dialogue with the protesters.

Judging purely by people’s actions, the overwhelming majority of people on all sides of Saturday’s protest wanted peace, but it was the violence that wrote the narrative.

This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 5:00 AM.