No arrests at Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ protest in Eugene as police, organizers differ over crowd count

This story has been updated with a new crowd estimate from police.

An estimated crowd of more than 6,000 took part in Saturday’s peaceful “No Kings” street demonstration, Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner said Monday.

But crowd estimates vary. Police on Saturday put the crowd at about 10,000, and a spokesman for event organizers 50501 Eugene on Monday said “10,000+” attended.

And on Tuesday, Eugene police spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin said the department’s patrol division estimates the number of people in attendance as roughly between 7,000 and 8,000.

Whatever the number, several thousand gathered to support the group in opposing what it calls “the authoritarian actions of the Trump Administration.” Organizers have specifically called out a lack of due process in federal immigration enforcement activity.

Another key number for Saturday’s event: zero arrests, according to McLaughlin. Several peaceful demonstrations also took place in other parts of the state.

In Eugene, “people exercised their First Amendment right and then dispersed and had a great weekend,” Skinner said, praising 50501 Eugene, a local chapter of what’s called the 50501 Movement.

“We had great communication with the organizers,” Skinner said.

Boris Wiedenfeld-Needham, a spokesman for 50501 Eugene, said in an email the group had six groups of “trained de-escalators,” five medics and four legal observers on hand for Saturday’s event.

While police closed the main roads, “we handled most of the traffic on the through-streets,” he said.

“We policed our own march,” Wiedenfeld-Needham said.

“No Kings” rallies took place Saturday in roughly 2,000 cities across the country.

Crowd estimates vary for the many events.

Wiedenfeld-Needham said the group used time-lapse video to arrive at its estimate of “10,000+” in attendance at the Eugene event.

“I have no idea why Skinner revised it down, but he is wrong,” Wiedenfeld-Needham said in a text message Monday.

The American Civil Liberties Union, a legal advocacy organization supporting the demonstrations, estimated that more than 5 million attended the protests nationwide. Wiedenfeld-Needham referred to an estimate of more than 13 million across all events.

By comparison, an estimated 15 million to 26 million Americans took part in a series of nationwide protests over several days in 2020 after the death of George Floyd while in police custody. A Minneapolis police officer was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, among other charges, in connection with Floyd’s death.

The revised Eugene police count puts Saturday’s event just short of estimates for a May 31, 2020 street protest after the slaying of Floyd, when local news organizations described more than 7,000 in attendance. It was the largest estimated crowd among a series of protests in Eugene, according to data estimates from Harvard’s Crowd Counting Consortium.

The atmosphere Saturday differed greatly from that large 2020 protest, which took place after some street vandalism in preceding days and resulted in at least two lawsuits against Eugene police alleging an excessive use of force against some in attendance.

Skinner last week spoke of lessons learned from protests in 2020.

“We were fairly demonstrative in our response to some of the George Floyd stuff, Skinner told the Police Commission, a citizen’s advisory group, on Thursday. “We used a sledgehammer in a couple of instances where we didn’t need to. And so we learned from that as well.”

Before Saturday’s event, Skinner told the Police Commission that police expected a “much larger” crowd compared to a peaceful rally last Wednesday that drew roughly 1,000 protestors.

But there were reasons to worry ahead of Saturday, Skinner said, referencing protests elsewhere.

Protests in Los Angeles earlier this month began to turn violent between some protesters and police. In the days before Saturday’s “No Kings” march, street demonstrations took place in several cities across the United States  — with a few reports of violence — as President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

“I had city officials, elected officials concerned about what we were seeing nationwide, and I think that’s a fair concern,” Skinner said Monday.

But Saturday’s event turned out peacefully “through great communication, a great plan and I think just a great community that understands that your voice can be heard, and you can be loud and advocate for your cause without devolving into chaos and lawlessness,” Skinner said.

Skinner said Monday he didn’t have a count for the total number of police officers on hand for Saturday’s event. McLaughlin, the department’s spokeswoman, said it would take weeks to tally any overtime costs.