On Patrol In Louisville
This year has been a lively one here in Louisville. We usually have the National Guard in town for the Kentucky Derby every year but they're usually not carrying rifles. This year they were in town several times more than normal and their presence was a lot more contentious.
It seemed a bit insane to see military vehicles and troops with rifles marching through the streets of town. Not all the guardsmen were carrying rifles though, some were carrying riot shields just like LMPD and the Kentucky State Police.
All in all the guard was less hostile and aggressive than LMPD, at least in my encounters with them. All these photos are from their first visit of the year, partway through that they shot and killed a local business owner at 26th and Broadway.
The guard mostly just backed the police up, posting up behind them as they faced off with protesters. At night they would also use their vehicles (both humvees and medium trucks) to block intersections downtown and shut down all traffic going in or out.
Who else got to experience the 'fun' of curfews and National Guard in the streets this summer?
@tipu curate
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Even here in a very pro-military conservative part of the country, I don't think people would tolerate National Guard patrols for long. Curfews, protest suppression, and military patrols through town should be red flags to anyone with any concern for liberty.
It was something I would expect to see on the streets of Baghdad or Beirut, not Louisville, Kentucky. The guy that got killed by the guard owned and ran a BBQ joint and was providing food for a weekly community get together when LMPD and the guard showed up to enforce the curfew. That incident was the only instance where it was enforced outside the downtown area where the protests were happening. It was wild, I'd grown up seeing the military as a source of protection and defense but here they was fingering their rifles and eying me like I was the enemy.
The things that went down that first week of protests here should have raised so many red flags it wasn't even funny. The last time they were in town, for the announcement of charges, was even worse. They preemptively shut down downtown and then barricaded it off with concrete barriers. You had to give the cops what they considered a legitimate reason to even drive down a street downtown.