‘Really rough night’: Sacramento cleans up again after looting, vandalism follow Floyd protest
Looting and vandalism hit the streets of midtown and downtown Sacramento late Sunday, the second straight day mostly peaceful demonstrations in the afternoon against Minneapolis police officers’ killing of George Floyd were followed by shattered windows and dumpster fires after nightfall.
And for the second consecutive morning, citizens and community leaders called for a cleanup effort to repair the damage done to numerous businesses on the capital city’s grid, many of them locally owned shops and restaurants along J and K streets.
Sacramento Bee reporters at the scene Sunday night witnessed windows being shattered at an optometrist’s office; a fire erupting at the Rite Aid store at 9th and K; and looting at the 7-Eleven at 8th and J and the BevMo store on J street, both of which had also been hit one night earlier.
“It was worse today than it was yesterday,“ said Ron Gray, owner of Gray Construction, as he and his crews surveyed the damage Monday at Bevmo. “This is something.”
Gray’s company has been working 15-hour days the last two days, hurriedly putting up plywood over shattered windows at stores and businesses all around central Sacramento.
“We just did Target on Broadway, all the windows were blown out. It was loaded,“ he said.
Target, restaurants and a nonprofit all hit
From the Target store on Broadway and Riverside to a midtown clothing shop that benefits battered women, many spots were hit by vandals and looting.
“They took out the two glass doors, five windows,” said Manny Hundal, owner of the Pieology pizza restaurant at 16th and K streets. “They basically just looted it. They threw wine bottles inside that they got from somewhere, so we’ve got to clean all that up. Just destruction.”
Next door, Mike Yee, an employee at Mikuni’s restaurant, glanced at his shattered windows and recalled logging on to the restaurant’s surveillance cameras shortly before midnight and seeing the vandalism occur in real time.
“I could see them smashing the windows,” he said. “Pretty disheartening, isn’t it?”
Next door, prominent developer and Sacramento Kings minority owner Mark Friedman was chatting with employees of his company, Fulcrum Properties, who were sweeping up shards of glass in the lobby of the Elliott Building — his mixed-use office and retail complex. The Elliott is where former Gov. Jerry Brown and his wife Anne lived for a while before moving into the restored Governor’s Mansion.
Friedman quickly pivoted around the corner, to J Street, and ducked his head inside what was left of the PF Chang’s restaurant. He gestured to what looked like a puddle of red wine on the floor of the restaurant and said, “Is that blood?” He added he decided to close Arden Fair mall for the day after learning that prospective looters were in the vicinity late Sunday, being watched by police who were guarding the entrances.
As Friedman snapped a photo with his cell phone, Nick Axley, 22, one of countless volunteers who swarmed over midtown Monday, was sweeping up glass outside Chang’s.
“These are innocent businesses that don’t deserve this,” the Elk Grove resident said. “So it was like, well, while the world is hellbent on destroying itself, what can I do to try to put it together a little bit? These businesses don’t deserve this. These workers are trying to provide for their families.”
Broken glass, the smell of liquor
In a two- or three-block area near Memorial Auditorium, one couldn’t walk anywhere without crunching broken glass underfoot. Workers were putting up new plywood on the BevMo liquor store at 17th and J streets, which got hit for the second straight night and where the smell of spilled liquor wafted onto the sidewalk.
The CVS pharmacy on K Street, also struck again, was boarded up. At Squeeze Burger at 16th and K, where a door was smashed in but no looting occurred, co-owners Steve and Sabrina Gunderson were having the remaining windows boarded up.
“We were one of the lucky ones. We weren’t robbed or ransacked,” Steve Gunderson said.
A city police officer walked by in bulletproof vest, and a woman in a car drove by, flipped him off and chanted, “F--- the police.” He told her, “Thank you,” and got into his car.
At Station16 restaurant on 16th, where liquor was stolen and windows were smashed, employees muttered that it was time to call out the National Guard. Across the street, two volunteers, Andy Thielen and Mike Mooney, were sweeping up broken glass from five rental cars that got vandalized at the Hertz rent-a-car lot.
“Just disappointed in all the destruction here,” Thielen said. “We don’t want our city to be like this, so we want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”
The scope of the damage seemed random — Sawasdee Thai Cuisine at 19th and J was damaged but nearby businesses were undamaged. Multiple windows were smashed at Disability Rights California, an advocacy agency at 18th and K. The True clothing shop, which supports WEAVE, was looted in two waves, with clothing taken and jewelry display cases busted.
“It’s just unfortunate, given that (the store) benefits victims of domestic violence and this is what you choose to come in and pillage and ruin,” said WEAVE director Beth Hassett as she surveyed the wreckage.
The damage wasn’t confined to downtown or midtown. The Target store on Broadway had windows smashed for a second straight night and was closed for the day. A store manager said it wasn’t clear how much merchandise disappeared; he said employees were still taking stock of the losses from Saturday night.
Cleanup efforts, protest
The downtown Sacramento partnership tweeted a call for the community to “clean #DowntownSac,” meeting at 8 a.m. this morning at 7th and K streets. Mayor Darrell Steinberg retweeted the campaign, telling those interested in helping out to wear gloves, jeans and close-toed shoes.
“Show how much we all love @TheCityofSac,” Steinberg tweeted.
On Sunday, the mayor and city briefly considered imposing a curfew, but decided to back off. Steinberg said Sunday though that a curfew could well be in order tonight. He plans to discuss that again with city officials Monday.
“A really rough night for our district,” Michael Ault, head of the downtown Sacramento partnership, said in an email to members. “We are seeing significant damage and looting, Many of the impacted businesses had just regrouped from (Saturday) night’s events. Obviously, we are devastated by the issues and truly never anticipated this level of impacts and damage.”
Demonstrations started early Sunday afternoon as a rally at Cesar E. Chavez Plaza, across I street from Sacramento City Hall between 9th and 10th streets.
A group of about 800 marched from there toward the state Capitol building shortly after 4 p.m. By around 6:30 p.m., hundreds of protesters took to Interstate 5, shutting down both directions of traffic relatively briefly as demonstrators faced off with the California Highway Patrol. CHP officers used batons and some flash-bangs to herd the group back up the P Street ramp, and most were off the freeway by about 7 p.m.
The relative calm came to an end around 8:20 p.m., when a crowd of roughly 200 broke off from the main group, beginning to set off fireworks and some breaking car and storefront windows along J Street. More windows were smashed, and looting began, around 9 p.m.
Sacramento police began deploying tear gas canisters in the area of 10th and L streets, after declaring the remaining protest group an unlawful assembly and ordering them to disperse. Police fired bursts of rubber bullets at protesters refusing to leave.
Reporters Ryan Sabalow and Jason Pohl said the midtown and downtown areas were being overrun by roaming bands of looters around 11:30 p.m., about the time they and all other Bee journalists covering the chaos left the area for their own safety. Bee reporter Sam Stanton and photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. were knocked to the ground by two men running at full speed who stole Kitagaki’s camera.
Authorities, businesses and offices are bracing for yet another day of possible chaos.
State government offices in downtown city areas across California, including Sacramento, will be closed Monday due to protests, according to a Government Operations Agency spokeswoman.
“All state agencies and departments were given this direction by the California Department of Human Resources,” agency spokeswoman Amy Palmer wrote in a Sunday night email.
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 7:27 AM.
