Afterward, I headed downtown to see some of the aftermath of the rioting that happened on Saturday night. I was somewhat surprised to find downtown was fairly crowded with hundreds of people there to do volunteer clean-up work. There were folks spraying and scrubbing graffiti off buildings and sidewalks, and lots more cleaning up broken glass from broken windows and boarding up windows. One guy by the courthouse was handing out bottles of water to volunteers, and saw men wearing an NRA hat and a BLM T-shirt both helping in the cleanup.
I eventually found myself in the Old Market, where I bumped into Don Bacon and his brigade, who were cleaning up at the corner of the Hollywood Candy shop. Strangely enough, volunteers for Kara Eastman, who’s running against Bacon, showed up to scrub the opposite corner (though Kara herself was nowhere to be found). By some coincidence, our friends the Mills drove by a few minutes later, just looking to help wherever they could. The owner of the Hollywood Candy shop came out with fudge to thank everyone for their help shortly before we were cleared out, as another “protest” was allegedly gearing up. I saw a glimpse of some left-wing nut-jobs raising their fists a few blocks away near the Hive Bar down the street, where the owner apparently shot and killed a protester in self-defense.
