Pro-abortion demonstrators surrounded Arizona’s Capitol building on Friday night, forcing riot police to use tear gas to disperse the enraged mob in the wake of Roe v. Wade being reversed.
The lawmakers, who were trying to finish the 2022 session, claimed that they were effectively kept prisoner inside. They eventually congregated in a safe place while SWAT squad members tried to scatter the crowds.
According to KPHO-TV, when many anti-abortion demonstrators began pounding on the building’s glass doors, the officers opened fire.
Eight states, including Arizona, banned abortion clinics from operating after the verdict was announced on Friday.
This is due to the fact that, following Friday’s Supreme Court decision, a pre-Roe legislation prohibiting all terminations was immediately reinstated.
Republican Governor of Arizona Doug Ducey maintains that a law he previously signed prohibiting abortions beyond 15 weeks is still in effect.
However, Ducey’s claim can only be decided by the state’s courts, and some ardent Republicans have already advocated for the continuation of the original prohibition on all terminations.
No injuries or arrests, according to the authorities.
According to Democratic Senator Martin Quezada, the event forced senators to spend around 20 minutes in the building’s basement.
After that, stinging tear gas filled the Capitol, prompting the Senate to transfer its proceedings out of the Senate chamber and into a hearing room.
To protest the overturning of Roe v. Wade, tens of thousands of passionate protesters flocked to the streets on Friday around the country.
The majority held signs, chanted messages, and attended speakers.
According to the New York Post, following rallies held throughout the city on Friday, at least 25 people have been detained in New York. An estimated 17,000 people attended a march in Lower Manhattan’s Washington Square Park, according to a police officer.
According to KTLA, similar arrests were also made in Los Angeles, and demonstrators also appeared in Chicago, Washington, and other sizable cities.
According to NBC5 Chicago, thousands of people also marched through Chicago’s Grant Park, closing multiple streets. JB Pritzker, the millionaire governor of Illinois, attended.
Tens of thousands of people flocked to the streets throughout the US in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and return abortion rights to the states after nearly 50 years.
City of New York
Pro-choice protesters were incensed by the decision and came to the streets in Washington, D.C., Phoenix, New York City, and Los Angeles, pleading with the Biden administration to find a way to overturn it.
While others gathered outside Justice Clarence Thomas’ residence, a group was seen burning the American flag in the nation’s capital.
Police in Arizona were forced to use tear gas on protesters after they seemed to break into the State Senate building in Phoenix. Staff members were evacuated, but no injuries were reported.
And after over 17,000 people gathered in Washington Square Park and marched through the streets to Grand Central Station, Times Square, and Bryant Park, at least 25 people were detained in New York City.
They also halted in front of News Corp.’s corporate offices, which house Fox News and The New York Post, and shouted, “Burn it down!” F-k Tucker Carlson, burn it down! ‘F*** Fox’ was also spray-painted on the building’s side by vandals.
LOS ANGELES
The LAPD said that during rallies, protesters were hurling rocks and water bottles at police.
According to ABC7, demonstrators were hurling what looked like fireworks at police. Additionally, they saw a man being temporarily taken away from the protests.
According to the LA Times, at one point, just after 9 p.m., authorities declared an unlawful assembly, forcing demonstrators to disperse or be arrested while preventing reporters from witnessing the incident.
The mob earlier in the day marched onto the 110 Freeway in the northbound direction, briefly halting traffic.
Iowa’s Cedar Rapids
As protests grew violent, a pickup truck struck pro-choice demonstrators in Iowa.
The protestors in Cedar Rapids yelled at the black car to halt and slammed on the hood and glass, but it continued to drive through them.
During the terrifying encounter on Friday night, one appeared to be stuck in front of it and narrowly avoided being driven over as the driver sped off.
Another’s foot was driven over, leaving her in excruciating pain. And a third was knocked to the ground as he drove off, receiving scrapes and bruises.
Alexis Russell, 30, raced over to tell the man to halt when she observed him driving his pickup into the gathering. She told DailyMail.com, “I was standing on a sidewalk facing the traffic.” Therefore, I didn’t even hesitate when I first saw it.
Two people are being shoved along the road on the hood of the driver’s car as Russell, wearing a white t-shirt and trousers and having long black hair, can be seen pleading with him to stop.
She claimed, “I raced over there and tried to grab the wheel.” What the hell are you doing, I thought to myself. These folks are actually being harmed by you.
They are being inactive.
He ripped my sign after grabbing it through the glass. He grabbed my sign as I reached for the driving wheel, but he let go so I still have both pieces.
Russell claimed that up until that moment, the 300–400-person march had been calm, despite the fact that many other drivers in firmly Republican Iowa had ‘flipped us off’ as they passed.
As the march proceeded through the city, past important landmarks, and came to an end, Stacey Walker, 34, a local politician who serves on the Linn County Board of Supervisors, told DailyMail.com that it had been “very unremarkable.”
He claimed there had been some jeers, but nothing unusual. He then noticed the commotion and noticed one of the two people being pushed along the road by the pickup truck to be an assistant from his office.
Walker ran over to the car and yelled at the driver in videos posted on social media. The fact that the driver didn’t intend to stop was quite clear, according to Walker. I’m going to assume that this individual did not support what we were doing.
In a landmark decision that tore apart five decades of constitutional protections, the Supreme Court on Friday declared the right to an abortion unconstitutional.
The conservative-dominated court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a woman’s right to an abortion, holding that individual states might impose their own restrictions or bans on the operation.