Gabriela Canchola lives downtown.
She’s not afraid.
The 33-year-old digital marketing professional walks downtown with her 15-year-old son, and their dog, Ducky, a wire-haired terrier mix. They walk at night. In the morning. Whenever.
When interim ºüÀêÊÓƵ Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole says amid protests following the acquittal of Jason Stockley, a former police officer, Canchola is the target audience. Or she was, anyway.
Thanks to the actions of some of the police under O’Toole’s command, she doesn’t feel safe anymore.
“I’ve never felt insecure before,†Canchola says. “Now I don’t feel safe because of the cops.â€
It started Sunday night.
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She came home after a date and had dinner with her son. She heard some of the protests going on and wanted to take a walk to see what was happening.
Canchola isn’t a protester.
She grew up in Wentzville, spending some of her summers in Mexico, where she has family. Since 2012, she has lived in the city, first on the South Side and then downtown. She recently finished a master’s degree in new media production from Webster University. She has followed the protests from afar.
On Sunday, she wanted to see what they were about close up. Canchola, her son and Ducky started walking toward the sound. It was around 8:30 p.m., she remembers.
At Ninth and Olive streets they were stopped in their tracks. Twenty or so police officers on bicycles blocked her way.
“They came out of nowhere,†she says. “They were starting to form a line and they told me to go away.â€
Canchola isn’t shy. I figured that out when I met her a few months ago while speaking to her class at Webster. If she has a question, she’s going to ask it.
She asked a police officer what he and his cohorts were doing.
He told her they were about to tear gas the protesters, she says.
But why?
It was an unlawful assembly, they told her.
Canchola looked around. She saw a couple of broken windows, and overturned planters on the sidewalk. She sent her son and dog back to their apartment.
And she stood her ground.
“I didn’t see any violence happening,†she says. “I just continued to stand there. This is my neighborhood. I was bewildered.â€
Canchola took out her phone and started texting. She said she felt a light flashed her direction every time she held her phone up to her face, as if they were trying to stop her from videoing what was happening.
The incident took her back to 2014. It was the last time she recalls an encounter with police.
A neighbor who was a black activist was being arrested in the southern part of the city. She remembers standing outside and watching.
“When the cop knew I was watching him, he behaved differently,†Canchola says. “There is a difference between how I’m treated and a black person is treated.â€
On Sunday, the night O’Toole said something changed in Canchola.
Police were just plain rude to her, she says. They pushed her back. They stopped her neighbors, some of them walking around in their socks after a quick trip outside with the dog, from getting to their homes.
By the time the night was over, , nearly all for “failure to disperse.†Among those arrested were reporters and livestreamers, photographers, neighbors. They weren’t arrested for breaking windows or threatening violence, but for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Canchola was not among them. She eventually made it back to her home before it was impossible to do so. But the night won’t soon be forgotten.
“I just couldn’t believe they were so set on tear-gassing people,†she says. “I thought it was crazy, their attitude toward me. Before last night, the protests were merely eye-opening. Now I’m outraged. I feel the injustice.â€
On Monday morning she became a protester, joining the march to City Hall, elevating justice over her own sense of peace.
“I feel what my neighbors feel for the first time,†Canchola says. “I understand.â€