On Thursday, 16 July 2020, I went to the Protest For Freedom — New Mexico rally sponsored by We The People Of New Mexico at 1 Civic Plaza, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Details and pictures follow. All pictures are by myself, unless otherwise noted.
At least 1 x New Mexico State Police [NMSP] officer was patrolling around Civic Plaza in a marked unit (doing laps?).
Several uniformed Albuquerque Police Department [APD] officers were present, watching the event from near the east entrance of the City Hall building
Couy Griffin and the Cowboys for Trump [C4T] "color guard" rode around Civic Plaza on horseback for at least one lap.
Several New Mexico Civil Guard [NMCG] personnel were present on stage, as well as in the crowd.
A camera operator from KRQE 13 News was present and set up his equipment about 15 feet from the center front of the stage steps.
A partial list of speakers follows (apologies if I missed anyone) —
Louie Sanchez, owner of Calibers, was the second speaker (I didn't get any good pictures of the first, an African-American gym owner) and spoke about the Second Amendment.
Hailey Bradford (sp?)
Local pastor Steve Smothermon led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Greg Baca, Republican State Senator from District 29
Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, head of Cowboys for Trump [C4T]
David C. Chavez started his speech with the beginning of "Eye of the Tiger".
The officially-booked speakers concluded the We The People program at 6:45 PM. The stage was handed off to others for the next 15 minutes —
Audrey Trujillo (no pictures available)
Scott Chandler, Republican candidate for House District 32 (no pictures available)
Sergeant Major Hawkins of the NM Civil Guard said that he's running for Bernalillo County Sheriff in 2022 (he's got my vote at this point). He also talked about the Lujan connetion to slavery — Don Pedro Leon Lujan was arrested by the Utah militia in 1851 for slave trading.
Dinah Vargas, Republican candidate for House District 10
Mary Ingham, Republican candidate for NM Senate District 14 (no pictures available)
Stephen Cecco, Republican candidate for New Mexico House District 19 [1].
Mike Cordova, current LPNM Bernalillo County Chair, made contact with me towards the end as I was taking notes — he said Elisheva Levin mentioned me to him.
The crowd started dispersing at 7 PM after the event's end was announced from the podium.
NOTES FROM THE EVENT:
- There was a visible law enforcement presence from at least two agencies — APD and NMSP. During the 90 minutes that I was on the scene, I observed NO altercations between law enforcement and ANYONE — attendees, counter-protestors, the NM Civil Guard personnel, ANYONE. So maybe all cops aren't evil? Better to simply deal with them as you deal with everyone else — as individuals.
- Whatever counter-protest group(s) that were there weren't violent at all, and didn't seem to have much of a presence. (I didn't see any, but the article in the Albuquerque Journal said that there were some there, so whatever.)
- It started raining (slight drizzle, actually — nothing more) at about 6:19 PM, and stopped by 6:50 PM.
- All of the speakers stuck to the general message of "Michelle Lujan Grisham is abusing her powers as Governor" — that's a good thing. No one went off on conspiracy theories, or called for government to be made more intrusive, more expensive or more powerful.
- I didn't see piles of trash of the sort found after lefty-fascists events (water bottles, fast-food drink cups, aluminum cans, snack wrappers and bags, etc.) left on the ground after the event.
- The Facebook page set up for the event advised attendees to bring their own water. I would suggest that for future events, vendors such as food trucks be invited, and that arrangements made for restroom access (there didn't seem to be any for this event).
Copyright © 2020 Mike Blessing. All rights reserved.
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