Earlier this month, in the run-up to the No Kings protests held nationwide, protests in Los Angeles against ICE raids in their community faced violent suppression by feds and LA police and a curfew imposed by the city’s mayor. These responses, and the “if it bleeds, it leads” coverage in much of the media, led people to worry about violence at protests—and to crave guidance for how to stay safe.

First, here are our protest safety tips. We have just added the advice that if violence or crime happens, move away from it. Do not sit down at a protest—it will put you in more danger.

Don’t be a sitting duck. Move to safety.

Our guidance is based on our eight years of experience in nonviolent protest, and aligns with guidance from the nationwide 50501 movement—and it directly contradicts some bad advice that went viral in early June, partly assisted by progressive content-farm accounts like Occupy Democrats:

Occupy Democrats got what they wanted: This terrible advice went viral as good people believed it and passed it along.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Before we even get into the specifics, there’s a couple of red flags that this image isn’t a trustworthy source of information:

The engagement-farming components like “This needs to go viral” and “Please share far and wide” send a clear signal that the author of this image cared more about getting likes and shares than sharing true, useful information. Organizations that focus on informing and equipping people aren’t desperate to juice their social media metrics—they trust their audience to recognize the value in what they’re publishing.
The unsourced claim about expected Proud Boys and other infiltrators. “We are being informed”—by who? Read On the Media’s Breaking News Consumers Handbook for more tips on how to spot questionable information.

Neither of these issues is unique to this particular image. There is no shortage of rage-bait or clickbait or share-bait images (or other social media posts) that do similar things. When you spot these warning signs, re-evaluate how much trust you place in the publisher of such images/posts.

Also, with June 14 now behind us, we’ll note that the supposed planned infiltrations that Occupy Democrats claimed they were “informed” of didn’t happen. The No Kings protests, including our own, were overwhelmingly peaceful—the only violence we’re aware of is the shooting in Salt Lake City, and we’re not aware of any incidents involving organized infiltration by “Trump brownshirts” like the image suggested.

Why did this message catch on?

This image caught people’s imaginations because it paints a made-for-Hollywood picture:

The scene: An open street on which protesters are massed, perhaps chanting with signs, while a phalanx of cops lines up across an intersection.

The action: A bottle thrown. A shot fired. The hissing of spray-paint. In a single moment, the peaceful vibe abruptly shifts.

The reaction: Police level their rifles, whether loaded with rubberized slugs, beanbag rounds, pepperballs, or fully-lethal bullets. They take aim.
And at the same time, all the nonviolent protesters sit down. They sit cross-legged on the pavement, leaving the perpetrators of violence or property destruction still standing, maybe running, making clear targets for the police to focus on.

Compelling, right? People imagined more or less exactly that scene and it appealed to them, and so they spread the message to help make this dream come true.

But that’s all it is: a dream. A fantasy. A nice scene to imagine, not applicable to real life.

This is not a realistic scenario, for a few reasons:

The idea that the violence would only come from “Trump brownshirts” or other outsiders; that the cops are there solely to thwart such threats and would never target nonviolent protesters themselves.
The idea that all of the nonviolent protesters will sit down in unison in a magical made-for-Hollywood moment.
The idea that whatever weapons the police use will only affect the targeted infiltrators and not any nonviolent protesters who sit down. (Not true of any weapons, but especially untrue of chemical weapons like tear gas.)
The idea that being a sitting duck on the ground will somehow make you safer, when it will in fact put you in more danger for being a stationary target.

Let’s dig into these issues and more in more detail.

In real life, violence is fast

If you took a moment to imagine the sequence of events described above, it probably felt like an ample window of time to take action.

We’re used to that because of how violence is depicted in television and movies. The performers follow a script and a choreographed sequence of actions, both to help the audience follow what’s going on and to ensure that the actors and stunt performers don’t get hurt—that the only people who get injured or killed are the fictional characters in the story.

Real life doesn’t have writers or stunt choreography. In a violent situation in the really-real world, people don’t take turns and act in sequence; they act in parallel, each person adapting to everyone else’s moves in real time.

Which means real-life violence is fast. The phrase “over before you know it” can be literal.

You are not going to have time to sit down, much less get up again, before whatever shit hit the fan starts splattering you.

Not everybody will have gotten the memo

Maybe you saw the above image (or some variation on the recommendation in question) online. But not everybody did. Plenty of people aren’t on the social networks where it was posted and cross-posted, or just aren’t in the specific subsets of those networks where you saw it.

The image conjures a scene in which the whole crowd of nonviolent protesters sits down in unison, everyone knowing just what to do. Don’t believe it—it’s a fantasy.

Even those who have heard of it might simply choose not to. Maybe they’re not able to sit down on the ground easily or quickly. Maybe they disagree with the advice for their own reasons. Maybe they even read this very blog post!

So what would actually happen is: A few people sit down, and the rest of the crowd are still standing. Nothing has actually improved, and now you’re surrounded by a bunch of people who are standing—possibly running—while you’re in their way. You may get accidentally kicked, people may trip over you and fall, and you’ll have made a bad situation worse.

Police will still use force

The viral image doesn’t say what happens if “only the provocateurs [are left] standing”.

If you think about it, you’ll quickly realize: Of course the cops still need to act. The perpetrators who are left standing won’t just spontaneously teleport to jail; the cops will still need to arrest them. And since they probably don’t want to be arrested, the cops will have to insist.

Even if everything went as postulated by the image, everyone sitting down wouldn’t immediately restore peace to the scene. The police will still use force. And that would still affect you, because…

This isn’t a video game; when shooters miss, you might get hit

Let’s assume, for the moment, that the cops will do as envisioned and only aim at the violent instigators who are left standing. (This is itself a fantasy, but we’ll get into that in a minute.)

Anybody with firearms experience will tell you that hitting the target you aim at is not as easy as TV and movies and video games make it seem. And anyone with combat experience will tell you that a shooter’s accuracy drops off rapidly when the target is moving, the shooter is moving, everybody else is moving, and the overall scene is noisy and chaotic.

Police will aim at their chosen targets. Even if their target isn’t you, they won’t necessarily hit that target. And the rubberized slug, gas grenade, or whatever they’ve launched will not spontaneously cease to exist because it missed—that only happens in video games. In real life, it will go wherever the weapon was pointing. It might hit you, or the person beside you or behind you.

And remember, these aren’t Nerf guns. Rubberized slugs (so-called “rubber bullets”), gas grenades, and other “less lethal” munitions can still cause serious injury or even death. Chemical irritants like CS gas or pepper spray can (indeed, are designed to) cause temporary blindness and incapacitation. You are not going to be sitting calmly on the ground while the cops’ use of force happens only to other people.

The phrase “sitting duck” exists for a reason. If you sit down and become a stationary target, you will be an easier target to hit—whether they mean to or not.

If they use chemical weapons, you’re maximizing your exposure

Tear gas, pepper spray, and other chemical irritant weapons are designed to linger at ground level unless dispersed by a strong wind.

If you sit on the ground, you’re staying in the gas cloud and inhaling as much of it as you possibly can. When (not if) you eventually have to move, you’ll breathe more of it with the exertion of getting back up and moving. Though that might still be better than if the cops handcuff you and leave you sitting there.

(Why would they handcuff you? See the next few items.)

If you were in a safe area, you might be able to equip a respirator to help reduce your exposure to the irritant. When the irritant is all over your face and hands because you’ve been sitting in it, you’ve missed your best chance to avoid the most exposure, and you’ll trap the irritant chemical between the respirator and your face. Of course, putting on a respirator only makes any sense if you plan on going back into the fray; leaving is a much safer option.

When police deploy these sorts of weapons, get out of the area. Get away from the chemical irritants—especially if you have asthma or other respiratory conditions that make these weapons particularly dangerous for you.

Don’t trust the cops #1: Sometimes they’re the perpetrators

Hey, remember when an LAPD officer fired a rubberized slug at an Australian TV reporter?

The scenario presented by the viral image is one in which Proud Boys or other civilian infiltrators start violence. It completely ignores another scenario: That the police themselves decide that the protest is over and they’re going to use force to make sure of that.

For an example of that, here’s some on-the-ground footage from MSNBC last week showing LA sheriff’s deputies advancing on horseback toward a crowd of peaceful protesters.

Hopefully we don’t need to tell you not to sit down in the path of those horses!

Police, sheriff’s deputies, and other law enforcement will use violence on their own initiative when they’re enforcing dispersal orders that they themselves issued or curfews ordered by the mayor, or sometimes just when they feel like it. They don’t need a torched Waymo as an excuse to use their weapons.

We should point out the American Friends Service Committee’s diagram of when it is legal for police in California to use “less lethal” force at protests.

Don’t trust the cops #2: They won’t necessarily be picky

Even if someone besides the police throws the first object, the cops are not necessarily going to care about sorting out innocent peaceful protesters from violent instigators right then and there. They’re at least as likely to round up everybody and sort out who’s getting charged with what down at the station.

The viral image supposes that if the peaceful protesters simply get out of the cops’ way, then only the infiltrators will be left standing and the cops will only go after them. This is a fantasy.

It is the police’s job to arrest people. It is prosecutors’ job to decide whom to charge based on the available evidence. There is no reason to expect police to make that decision on behalf of the prosecutors and voluntarily arrest fewer people.

In our safety monitor trainings, we tell trainees that if you must not be arrested for any reason (immigration status, probation, etc.), you should not even be in the area. That’s because anybody in a protest zone might get arrested if and when the police decide to start making arrests, regardless of what each individual did or did not do.

Don’t trust the cops #3: They will interpret your sitting down as defiance

You tell somebody to leave. Instead they sit down on the ground. How do you take that?

When police issue (or have issued) a dispersal order, or a curfew has begun, the cops will want everybody to leave. If you and all the other peaceful protesters then sit down on the ground, the police will interpret that as an intentional sit-in in defiance of the dispersal order.

Then they will start shooting their “less lethal” munitions at you.

If you’re going to defy the cops, intend to do so and have a good reason. This isn’t it.

A note about sit-ins

There is a method of nonviolent protest called a sit-in, where people intentionally sit down in a chosen space and refuse to leave until some condition is met (either a defined period of time elapses or demands are met). This might be at a peaceful rally site as a sort of performance, or it might be a method of civil disobedience if the sitting protesters block an entrance door or exit gate or something.

All of the same risks of sitting down at protests apply when you participate in a sit-in. Indeed, if you’re intentionally obstructing something, the risks are actually higher that the police will specifically use force on you if and when they decide to break up the action.

However, people who organize and participate in sit-ins know these risks and have voluntarily chosen to bear them. They know sitting down won’t keep them safe; they choose to face the danger in service of their cause.

So when we say “don’t sit down at a protest”, we don’t mean “don’t participate in a sit-in”. We mean “know the risks of sitting down and expect doing so to put you in more danger”. Any good sit-in organizer should fill you in on those just as we did, so you can make an informed choice.

Sit down at a sit-in, if you understand the risks and choose to bear them. Don’t sit down at a rally or march in an unfounded expectation that it will keep you safe—it won’t.

What you should do

At a rally or march, if violence or crime occurs, move away. In a march, that might mean you keep marching. In a rally, it might mean finding some other part of the venue to stand in. Or, either way, it might mean leaving the area. Whatever you do, don’t sit down or otherwise linger nearby.

Why you shouldn't sit down at a protest