Anti-shutdown protests at state Capitol have cost CHP nearly $1 million in OT, other costs
The California Highway Patrol has spent nearly $1 million in overtime and meal costs policing a series of protests against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order at the state Capitol since April 1, newly released figures show, and the figure is likely to go much higher as authorities brace for the biggest protest yet on Saturday.
The figures, released to The Sacramento Bee Friday in response to a California Public Records Act request, show the CHP has paid out $801,544.03 in overtime for officers and $185,548.86 for sergeants at the demonstrations.
The agency has deployed hundreds of officers and sergeants at a time to ring the north, south and west sides of the grounds to prevent protesters from gathering on the downtown Sacramento property since a May 1 standoff resulted in 32 arrests.
Since then, the CHP has taken a hard line, positioning officers in a line around the three sides of the Capitol, with 3-foot-tall steel fencing ringing it, as well. The east side, where tourists mingle with homeless people amid a series of monuments, has remained open.
The figures provided by the CHP include costs of feeding officers who have been brought in from offices around the state, including a $2,385 tab on May 9 for 250 sandwiches and 250 bags of chips from a Togo’s sandwich shop. Another $2,063.53 was spent that day for 330 burritos and 330 mini chips and salsas from Gordito Burrito, records show.
A May 7 protest generated a bill of $2,399.50 for 250 Greek veggie, ham and cheese, turkey and roast beef sandwiches and chips from Togo’s, records show, with a separate order from Gordito for 400 burritos tallying $2,501.25.
The total cost in the records released come to $996,442.17, but do not include other items such as numerous cases of water that have been stockpiled for the officers, who have been standing in riot gear during the demonstrations, or protective face masks.
Another protest planned Saturday
The figures likely will increase as a result of Saturday’s planned “Liberty Fest” demonstration, which is touted as the largest in the nation planned for Memorial Day weekend. It is the product of several “reopen” groups seeking an end to Newsom’s stay-at-home order and a halt to the ban on such protests on the Capitol grounds.
One group, the Freedom Angels Foundation, was chartering buses from Southern California that were to leave at midnight — $30 per adult, and sold out as of Friday, according to their website — and travel from various locations to the Capitol.
Such demonstrations have erupted nationwide over stay-at-home orders, and have included protesters ranging from business owners concerned about their livelihoods, parents worried about their children being locked out of school or church and people angry that their right to protest has been curtailed.
But the gatherings also attract various other groups ranging from fringe elements to single-issue advocates seeking publicity for their causes.
“These protests are almost like a bug lamp for everyone from those with legitimate gripes to a ragtag collection of others who glom onto them,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
“Certainly, the stay-at-home orders and whether they should be lifted are a legitimate topic of debate. But these protests are obviously not only individuals with legitimate grievances but those with crackpot theories related to a Second Amendment right to insurrection and the illegitimacy of vaccinations. It’s really an interesting assortment which varies by geography.
“So, in California, we have a combination of small business owners, anti-vaxxers and surf enthusiasts, as well as mainstream people legitimately concerned about the economic costs.”
Fringe groups liken officers to Gestapo
Protest participants statewide have run the gamut from the Freedom Angels, a group known for its activism over vaccines, to the California State Militia to a group known as New California State that is trying to form a new state and is run by a Yuba County radio show host. That group lists 95 grievances it has accumulated against California, including “fiscal tyranny” over taxation, “foreign invasion” through immigration and “ethnic cleansing.”
Individuals in some of the protests have included people insisting that the vaccine the federal government is seeking against COVID-19 is meant to kill citizens, that the California Highway Patrol’s shutdown of protests at the Capitol is a “Gestapo” tactic and that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s actions are similar to Adolf Hitler’s.
“This is illustrative of the powerful emotional draw that people have from these lockdowns, which have have enabled fringes and extremists to hijack public policy discussions with not only their single-issue advocacy but also a tidal wave of conspiracy theories,” Levin said.
Others say they simply are citizens concerned with how the state has responded to the coronavirus pandemic with its restrictions.
‘They’re just live-and-let-live people’
“I’m just a pissed off Californian,” said Pieter Friedrich, a 34-year-old Placer County resident who showed up at a Capitol rally May 9 with an upside down American flag and a bullhorn he used to whip the mostly quiet gathering into loud shouts at the CHP officers keeping the group from making it onto the Capitol grounds.
“California is the only state in the country where the state police, the highway patrol, have been deployed to keep people off the state Capitol,” said Friedrich, who said he is a writer and South Asian Affairs analyst whose experience as an activist helped him sharpen the focus of the protest.
“A lot of these people that are out there are just common, everyday people,” he said. “They don’t have any experience with activism. They don’t want to be getting into anybody’s face. They’re just live-and-let-live people.”
Friedrich said he was not pursuing any specific political agenda.
“I’m a complete free agent,” he said. “I’m definitely not Republican. I supporter Trump’s impeachment. But up until two months ago I was pretty much apolitical.”
Polls suggest protesters on the outside
California’s protests have been tense at times — 32 people were arrested at the Capitol on May 1 after a group of hundreds of protesters refused CHP orders to disperse — but mostly peaceful.
And, at times they have resembled Trump rallies, with many participants garbed in Trump hats and shirts, and waving Trump campaign flags. Vendors regularly set up shop on the sidewalks in front of the Capitol selling hats and flags, and protesters invoke his name as they denounce Newsom.
Levin, a former New York City police officer who has studied hate groups for years, noted that recent polling shows strong support still for stay-at-home orders nationwide.
But he added that as protests continue it is likely that Russian social media operators may attempt to insinuate their messages into such demonstrations.
“I am not saying the Russians are organizing these individual protests,” he said. “But what we have seen is when protests arose (in 2016) the Russians were involved in trying to ignite social unrest.
“And it is our center’s belief that they are doing the same, not necessarily in cahoots with individual organizers. But certainly it is our belief that foreign manipulation at some level is involved in exploiting the grass roots protest movements.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 12:32 PM.