We are cutting into programming here on WFAA plus, bringing you an update on two big stories we’re covering here in North Texas. They’re on one side of your screen. You’re looking at a live look in Plano, where many have gathered for a no kings protest there. And on the other side of your screen, we’re taking a look at at the UNT campus because we’re monitoring storms in our area throughout the. Afternoon.
Thank you so much for being with us. I’m Morgan Young, and I’m joined by senior crime and justice reporter Rebecca Lopez. We are covering No King’s protests today here in North Texas, and we were here back in June for the first round of these. Yes, I was out there at the Dallas one and I was just amazed at how large it got. I think at the at the beginning they were only estimating about 3000.
And I would say there were 15,000 people out there. It was very large, and I remember, you know, just seeing those crowds. It’s still early today. We know that a couple of the communities in our area have started to have their protests, and we’re starting to see those big numbers already. So we do want to check in with Natalie Haddad who was at that scene in Plano that you were just looking at.
Natalie, we’ve already talked this morning, large crowds larger than expected.
Yes, I was actually talking to the Collin County Democratic Party over the last few days. We had, they had numbers around 800 to be RSVP’d here, and of course people will show up. They are predicting that about 3000 people are here right now at the corner of Parker and Preston in Plano. Just take a look across the street, people have started to get some space over there to protest, but we’re going to walk down over here, John Mark.
We’re going to walk down this way to show you what the crowds really look like now. We just spent some time talking to a couple of protesters who are just much like what we saw in Frisco are just looking to spread the message that they are looking for a free and fair democracy and don’t feel like that’s what they are getting. A lot of creative signs out here trying to send that message. We have seen a couple of counterprotesters. Now it’s our understanding that a legitimate counter protest was not given a permit in time to be here, just like in Frisco, but we have seen a couple of.
People roaming the sidewalks with Trump signs trying to counter protests for the most part here from what we can see we just arrived but what we can see is that this is very peaceful. Everyone is having a peaceful conversation talking to us about what we have seen in other protests around Collin County and here I’m going to make our way around here where maybe you can hear some of their chants.
Donald Trump has got the. Now we’re going to be careful showing you what some of these protest signs say, as some of them do have some explicit words on them. I can’t even talk today.
They have cuss words, you guys, so we’re just going to try and be careful about what we are seeing here again, we’re predicting about 3000 people here from the Collin County Democratic Party. They are the ones. This particular kings protest over in Fresco that was independently hosted. Some of what we have heard from protesters so far is that they want to share that they are not being paid to be here. This was independently put on by the people of Plano.
Another thing that we have been told is that there is a mixed bag of party affiliations here. We’ve talked to people. Democrats talk to people who are Republicans, but not necessarily proud of their party right now. We have talked to Jews, we’ve talked to Arabs. We have talked to the children of war veterans.
We have talked to veterans. We’ve talked to preachers, to church groups, and everyone here again just sharing the same peaceful message of wanting a fair and free democracy and just not feeling like that is what they’re getting right now, Morgan.
And Natalie, before we let you go, Rebecca actually has a question for you about the — the — yeah, Natalie, what are you seeing security wise and how are they keeping the protesters apart because I know at times they have to like try to extradite people. Sure, you know what I’m seeing right now, and we just arrived in Plano, I should say I want to preface that because we are still getting a lay of the land here. We have seen a couple of officers patrolling the area going up and down the sidewalk.
We just had a couple of counter protesters pass us and we see some nearby officers keeping an eye on that, making sure that everything stays peaceful.
Nothing rowdy for we can see here on the sidewalk. Very similar to what we saw in Frisco too see a couple of patrol units over by the Wells Fargo Bank. A lot of retail businesses here where they are parked beside. I apologize if you can’t hear us.
If we can actually shift it to the street here on Preston Parker, just getting a lot of support from people honking and again, Rebecca, to your question again, officers are really on standby. I can see a couple standing over by the Bank of America. I don’t think you can see that on your screen right now, but they’re standing away allowing people to have their peaceful protests to exercise their First Amendment and going up and down the sidewalk, but it is not extreme. There are not, I wouldn’t say there are huge amounts of officers here because largely in part I believe they know that this is peaceful so far.
Thank you so much, Natalie.
I really appreciate you answering that question. And and Morgan, you know, one of the things that, um, at least in Dallas that they try to do is not show uh force. They do have their crime response teams ready, trust me, they’ve got people ready to go, but what you don’t want to do is see people or see officers in riot gear at the philosophy of the Dallas Police Department and many of the surrounding areas has always been if you look like you’re showing force, then people are going to react to that and, and that’s when you start getting, uh. To trouble, uh, so typically what you’ll see is you will not see a lot of officers in riot gear or things like that unless something happens and they need to, you know, be sent in. And what we know, and I know something we talked about a lot last time, and we heard organizers who had multiple calls this week leading up said that the goal, and Natalie said that too was for this to remain uneventful in that space, you know, wanting it to remain peaceful.
Uh some of the words they used were joyful and discipline. They want people to exercise their right. Certainly don’t want any of those incidents either. Absolutely. And in Dallas they are planning to march through the streets and that’s typically when it can get a little, you know, more complicated, but the Dallas Police Department knows the route.
They know exactly where the people are going so they can keep everyone safe. We know that Dallas demonstration is scheduled for noon, is that correct? And we just heard, you know, Natalie’s in Plano, but she started her day actually in Frisco and was kind of referencing what she saw there. Here’s some video of that. In Frisco and one of the things that she said to us is that very similar to Plano, a larger turnout than she was expecting.
She was surprised by how many people showed up, um, and even as she was leaving in the last hour of that protest it was scheduled from 9 to 11.
She said the crowds were actually doubling and you can just see people out there different ages, different signs of kind of similar to what we saw in Plano, um, and she spoke to some people about why they were out there, who was out there, and what their message is. This is not just Democrats it is Democrats, independents, Republicans, non voters that we hope to turn into voters. This is not a Democrat organization. It’s not an organization it’s a collective grassroots people that are just all kinds of people.
And you know we have more coverage around the area, but I do think it’s important for us to talk about maybe someone who’s joining us or hasn’t heard a lot about these, what the purpose of these protests are and I know we talked about that we had seen the first round of them in June, but the message that the protesters have today, yeah, and the message is that they are not happy with the president’s policies and what is happening and obviously now you have the government shut down.
So you, when I was out there um back in June, you saw people that had never even protested before that were out there, people. That said, you know, I want to be able to have health care. I’m angry about LGBTQ rights. I’m angry about immigration.
It is just a lot of people from a lot of different, uh, places and walks of life that are out there, and they are basically speaking out against President Trump and his administration. And and you know when we talk about the issues, I know at that point you spoke to people you named some of those issues, you know, a lot of people were really frustrated with immigration enforcement and what’s different or.
If you say this time around you mentioned the government shutdown. I know there’s been a lot of conversation about the deployment of the National Guard to different cities throughout the country that people have a lot of opinions about so we see these issues added — kind of to what we’ve been talking about and — I think people are also feeling a little bit of frustration about the economy and how what they’re paying at the grocery store and and what they’re seeing when they go and to go to check out. So there’s there’s just a lot of frustration that I heard when I was out there and even more so.
Looking now a few months later, uh, there are even more issues that I think that people are concerned about — that are out there protesting — and we know leading up to these demonstrations, yes, we heard a lot from organizers, but we also heard a lot from critics, uh, who were saying that basically, um, you know, that they were calling these protests un-American and really criticizing uh these as well, but I do believe we are going to go back to Plano, uh, because I believe our our scene there has changed a bit.
Uh I’m being told if we wanna take a live look at what we were just looking at in Plano. it’s here. I see rain is coming down. I don’t know if we have Natalie, uh, but we do see rain is starting to come down here.
And some of the crowds are starting to kind of disperse there, very different from what we saw. I’m not sure if you can hear me. Yes, Natalie, go ahead. Perfect. OK, sorry guys, it’s hard to hear out here, but yes, we are seeing, you know, the rain is starting to pour.
Cassie has been warning us about the incoming storms all morning long. Sure enough, timely enough, the rain is coming down here in Plano, and we’ve started to see the crowd begin to disperse. Some of the crowd is shelter. Under the Wells Fargo Bank, the Bank of America across the street, and some other retail here, so they’re looking to try to continue their protest, but right now the honking continues. People are still out here for as much as they are willing to keep up with the rain for that, you know, for however long that lasts.
