‘It should have been over months ago’: Protest voices

Stephen Caruso spoke to two people, Zack and his mother, Angela, who were walking past the Capitol on Sunday morning.

“So we take our daily sell or weekly Sunday trip up to [local coffee shop] Elementary, get a coffee and then like to stroll past the Capitol and whatnot,” Zack told the Capital-Star. “So as I was saying, as you can imagine, over the past two months, it’s been quite eventful on the Sundays when we walk by here, yeah, seeing anything from you know, church groups here with Trump flags to alarm militias here with Trump flags.

Zack told the Capital-Star that he was happy that it was a quiet Sunday morning.

“I’m happy with the way that this morning turned out the way that it obviously could have went as well,” he said. “It’s still never a good day to walk through your city and see, you know, military men in your streets and not being able to drive down your streets because there’s literally armored vehicles, you know, blocking it. So that’s not enjoyable.”

Still, he added, “For me I just think like that’s the saddest part is that since businesses have kind of been hard hurt, anyway, from pandemic like they have to close down just for the fear of something that could happen all because like I wish this had been over months ago, to be quite honest. It should have been over months ago.”