BOISE, Idaho — Update:
I've had some people reach out to me about the one person who the crowd reacted to in the protest, here is their side of the story.
The one person asked," how are all cops bastards due to the action of one or a few officers?" The person was responding to one of the signs that a protester had.
That elicited a response from the crowd as people reacted to that question and we have been told some people started yelling and pushing while others tried to create peace.
I was on the other side of the protest when this happened and only caught the aftermath and not what instigated the incident.
Original Story:
People gathered on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol to protest racism, police brutality and the death of George Floyd.
Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on Memorial Day, sparking protests all over America.
But unlike some of the protests in big cities that turned into riots, the people gathering in Boise wanted to assemble peacefully.
"It's not about rioting, it's not about damages to property, we are not here to hate on people and attack anybody," said Chance Poasa who helped organize the protest. "There is racism, there is police brutality everywhere, the system is corrupt."
Poasa admits this demonstration was pretty unorganized, heading into the event we couldn't figure out who was responsible for creating the protest.
Poasa told us Black Lives Matters in Boise contacted his group to take over the planning but then canceled the event a short time later. Still, people of all races and ages showed up to lend their support.
"To get the turnout that we have right now, it makes me feel very good," said Terrell White, who spoke at the rally while wearing a Colin Kaepernick jersey. "Kaepernick tried to get a movement like this going by peacefully kneeling on the football field as the universe would have it we are here because another person took a knee except he did it on somebody's neck and killed him."
White was born in Boise, but he has split time between the city of trees and the city of angels.
"The police that I've ran into here they have been pretty fair," said White. "We don't see the same element here that you see in LA where the police want to take advantage of their authority, I actually commend the police here for the way that they react and the way they do their job, but it is not that way in the majority of this country."
There was some animosity brought about by one man who sparked tension, but for the most part, it was a civil protest during the one and a half hours we were there.
The Idaho State Police and members of the Boise Police Department were on hand, but they didn't intervene during the protest.
