By: Jared Dean | KVDR.com
DENVER (KDVR) — Rick Kyle, a chief of operations with the Denver Police Department, says the No Kings protest on Saturday was peaceful. However, later that evening, a group unaffiliated with that protest became aggressive with officers, and that is when things took a turn.
“People were throwing objects at officers. My understanding is rocks, bottles, that type of thing,“ Kyle said.
Kyle says that is when police upped their response, doing what they’re trained to do in these types of situations.
“The officers then deployed smoke as a diversionary tactic and then used the pepper ball into the ground as an aerial denial to try and encourage people to move,” Kyle said.
In all, 35 people were arrested Saturday evening: charges range from throwing projectiles to interfering with police authority.
Kyle says following the weekend of protests, the department meets to discuss protocol and assess what needs to be done to best handle situations like these in the future. They also start planning for the next potential protest, monitoring social media to help gauge the crowd size to ensure they have enough officers on hand.
“We won’t tolerate violence or destructive behavior,” Kyle said. “We can’t allow violence and we can’t allow harm to our community.”
FOX 31 did cross-reference the list of the arrests made on Saturday with the arrests made on Tuesday and found there were no repeat offenders.
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