Protesters hit downtown Santa Rosa streets for second night after violence and vandalism Saturday

Santa Rosa braced Sunday for a second straight night of unrest downtown, where daybreak hours earlier illuminated a city shaken by street clashes between protesters and authorities, the aftermath of a peaceful demonstration Saturday that spiraled into nighttime violence, prompting police to deploy tear gas and rubber bullets as they worked to restore order until the early morning hours.

Business and church windows were shattered downtown and buildings were tagged with anti-police graffiti, the actions of a small group of protesters following a daytime demonstration that drew hundreds of people to condemn police treatment of minorities following the death of George Floyd, a black man killed while in police custody in Minneapolis last week.

At least three people, all Sonoma County residents, were arrested on suspicion of failing to disperse from the scene of a riot, and authorities reported individuals throwing fireworks, rocks, bricks and glass bottles at officers.

“It’s a scary situation,” said Santa Rosa Police Chief Ray Navarro. “You don’t know who’s in the crowd. You don’t know what they have.”

The department was planning for more nights of protest, but the city held off on issuing a curfew as of 9 p.m. Sunday, when another wave of demonstrators, totaling about 200 people, filled the southern end of Old Courthouse Square, their plans for the night unknown.

On Saturday night, protesters streamed onto Highway 101 twice, blocking the highway before they were cleared by authorities. Navarro said a passing motorist was assaulted during the dispersal of protesters but police but had not made any arrests.

A group of demonstrators threw rocks through several windows and tried to break open the front door of Cafe Mimosa at the corner of Mendocino and College avenues, said business owner Yazen Atallah. He opened the remodeled site of Adel’s Restaurant in January, only to run almost immediately into the coronavirus pandemic, and he estimated upwards of $20,000 in damage was done Sunday.

He expressed understanding for the protesters, who didn’t appear to be looting but rather acting out of unrest.

“I forgive whoever did it,” Atallah said, “because I understand the frustration in what’s going on today. But it’s not the answer - violence is not the answer, ruining a business is not the answer.”

Floyd died on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer, who now faces murder and manslaughter charges, pressed his knee onto Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as the prone man’s pleas for air were ignored by surrounding officers. Cellphone video of the fatal encounter went viral, leading to protests that began in Minnesota and spread to cities across the United States denouncing the deaths of Floyd and other black people at the hands of police.

Navarro, who has viewed the video, said he understood the anger and erosion of trust in law enforcement it has unleashed. He asked people to protest peacefully and expressed confidence in the temperament and training of his own officers.

“I don’t think you’re going to find anybody in law enforcement who thinks this was justified. It was terrible,” Navarro said of Floyd’s death. “Nine minutes on somebody’s neck is not something that we practice or that we condone here.”

The daytime demonstration in Santa Rosa, which began at noon Saturday in Old Courthouse Square, drew more than 500 people who held signs and chanted before marching north on Mendocino Avenue, toward the junior college campus.

By 9 p.m., police said in a statement, most of the demonstrators had dispersed, leaving behind about 150 people whose actions became increasingly confrontational. Officers, in turn, used non-lethal projectiles and their batons as they sought to quell the unrest, which lasted roughly until 3 a.m., the Santa Rosa Police Department said in a statement.

A press release issued by the police department Sunday reported no injuries, but a freelance photojournalist working for The Press Democrat photographed a woman bleeding from her head after she was hit with a non-lethal round. Authorities asked anyone who was caught in violence during the night to contact the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Investigators did narrow in on one incident involving a Santa Rosa teen who before nightfall Saturday drove a red Toyota pickup truck through a crowd of dozens assembled in the street near Old Courthouse Square. Police impounded the truck and released the teen, who told officers that his goal was not to hit people but to display the American flag flying from the back of the truck. No injuries were reported.

But that moment, followed by protesters taking off in pursuit of the truck, “seems to have created a more chaotic situation downtown and really changed the tenor of the evening,” said Jessica Hoover, a Santa Rosa resident who attended Saturday’s demonstration and was standing near the intersection when the truck drove through the crowd.

“As people started running, I felt unsafe,” Hoover said. “I felt the situation was changing.”

At least three people were arrested and face misdemeanor charges on suspicion of failing to leave the scene of a riot: Kaitlin Arnold, 31, of Cotati; Joseph Willis, 32, of Santa Rosa, and Jacob Beckman, 45, of Petaluma, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Willis, in an email, objected to the characterization of his actions as “rioting,” adding that he is “not a violent person and I am not happy with the ways things turned throughout the day.”

“We were simply sitting in front of the police line with our hands up and peacefully let them arrest us,” Willis said.

Santa Rosa officials assessed the damage downtown Sunday and discussed imposing a curfew, according to Navarro and Mayor Tom Schwedhelm.

The last time Santa Rosa has seen such unrest on its streets and heavy police response was in the mid-2000s at a series of unruly Cinco de Mayo events, according to Schwedhelm, a retired Santa Rosa police chief. Navarro noted other peaks of unrest, including public demonstrations protesting war in the Middle East in the 1990s and after the death of Andy Lopez, a 13-year-old boy who was fatally shot by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy in 2013 while carrying a pellet gun that resembled an assault rifle.

Navarro noted that Tuesday would have been Lopez’s birthday. For this and other reasons, Navarro and his officers were planning for more nights like Saturday, which was “a very difficult, trying situation.”

“We’re anticipating something happening on a regular basis for at least a couple days,” Navarro said.

The group causing trouble at night after the peaceful demonstration probably was a mix of locals and people from out of town, Navarro said.

“I wish I could say it’s not our community, but there may be a part of our community that does do that,” he said.

Schwedhelm expressed dismay over the in-custody deaths nationwide while emphasizing his support for the Santa Rosa Police Department. He said authorities cannot tolerate illegal behavior.

“Many are in a mourning or anger reaction, and I totally respect that and can recognize that,” Schwedhelm said. “But there comes a line where we cannot allow that type of behavior to come unchecked.”

Santa Rosa has not had an independent police auditor for more than a year. The city’s first and last law enforcement watchdog, Bob Aaronson, was hired to the part-time position in January 2016 and was not retained after clashing with the City Council over a critique of the city’s response to homelessness included as part of his final report.

Volunteers on Sunday morning started to scrub black spray paint with anti-police messages that had been scrawled across several structures - including at least two downtown banks, the hand sculpture in front of the Santa Rosa Plaza Mall, and The Press Democrat building. The Santa Rosa Police Department and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office also were vandalized, police said. Some of the graffiti preceded Saturday’s demonstrations.

Atallah, the Cafe Mimosa, owner, said he learned about the damage early Sunday morning through texts and videos posted on social media before arriving at 7:30 a.m. He and his employees did some clean-up to make the business safe before beginning to handle take-out orders: “We can’t really afford to miss a Sunday brunch.”

About a block south, Rev. Chris Bell of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Santa Rosa, surveyed the damage affecting his church: a tall plate glass window smashed by a young man with a hammer at about 12:49 a.m., Bell said after watching surveillance footage.

“Clearly, he didn’t see the ‘Black Lives Matter’ banner in our window,” Bell said.

Bell drew a distinction between the daytime rally downtown and the late-night vandalism, adding that the former seemed more about politics and the latter more about simple destruction.

“I support the peaceful protests and want to remind my brothers and sisters that violence does not help our cause,” Bell said.

A CHP spokesman said he was not aware of any arrests by Highway Patrol officers in Santa Rosa, where protesters blocked Highway 101 on two separate occasions. The CHP has “plenty of personnel” in the area Sunday and will try to prevent similar protest actions, Officer David de Rutte said.

“They can obviously protest and get their message out and do their thing, but we just can’t have the roadways being blocked,” de Rutte said, calling the blockading of a freeway “very unsafe.”

Petaluma Police Chief Ken Savano noted that demonstrations were peaceful in Sonoma County’s second-largest city but that an emergency call for aid drew several officers north to Santa Rosa after the rally gave way to more “violent and unlawful” activity. Sheriff’s personnel also were on hand to help officers in Santa Rosa.

Savano called on community members to be respectful and compassionate and emphasized that “property damage and violence will not be tolerated.”

“Like my staff, I am sickened, outraged, and saddened by the death of George Floyd,” Savano added.

“Although this current incident occurred many states away, the action or inaction by the involved officers has eroded the very same public trust we have worked so hard to achieve,” Savano said. “This incident reflects poorly on our entire profession of law enforcement.”