38th & Chicago, approaching 5pm

Impossible to assess the crowd size from the middle of it because most people are at least trying to maintain safe distance

Announcements being made by protest leaders asking everyone to spread out and offering free masks to anyone who didn’t bring one. Most of us are masked.

Protest is beginning with a Christian prayer. The speaker says “I speak PEACE right now.”

News helicopters overhead make it hard to hear the speakers, but the woman speaking now, introduced as a 3rd-generation neighborhood activist, is getting waves of applause as she speaks.

A new speaker references decades of struggle against racism; when he calls the quick firing of the four cops today a victory, the crowd erupts in applause.

“Whether you are in Mississippi or up north in Minneapolis... you have to fight! We are not interested in civil rights research - we are interested in human rights for these men who are being murdered!”

The crowd is filling in - doing my best to stay distanced but it’s almost impossible.

The crowd now reaches almost back to 36th St on Chicago Ave. More pleas from organizers to spread out for safety.

Worth noting it was supposed to be storming right now - instead, bright humid sunshine.

Organizers now fanning out in the crowd with masks, asking people to spread out and back “so they can’t shut us down.”

This is the quietest protest I’ve ever been at, and it’s clearly a result of people not wanting to spread the virus by shouting/chanting.

I couldn’t get a shot of it, but amid a sea of angry signs, one woman in a hijab wanders the front of the protest with a small sign high above her head reading “Where is YOUR compassion”

I’m intensely aware of being around this many people for the first time in months. People are trying to be careful, but we all know it isn’t really safe.

It also feels wrong - people should be embracing, leaning on each other for support. And we can’t.

Chants have been breaking out on the edges of the protest where it’s not possible to hear the speakers at the center, and now a couple of organizers in vests circulate telling people not to chant, presumably for safety.

I hear Australian accents on two press guys balanced on top of a van with their TV cameras. There’s a boomerang painted on the van, so I assume this means the Aussie press is still covering the MPD that also killed Justine Damond.

It’s still so quiet, except for the anguished yells coming from activists on the PA system. So much anger and hurt in this crowd, but all being expressed through eyes peeking out from over masks.

It’s a march now, heading east on 38th St at a snail’s pace as people try not to crowd each other. It’s hopeless, though.

Organizers encouraging the crowd to either march safely at distance or spread west down 38th to avoid crowding. They’re really doing everything they can; still passing out water, masks, and sanitizer as well.

I’ve decided not to join the march - I live with an elderly parent and I’m already worried about the risk to her from my coming here. But presumably you can see it on the news in about two minutes.