No Kings Protest Draws 7K-Plus

More than 7,000 people braved the rain yesterday at Fort Worth’s third No Kings protest, this one in General Worth Square downtown. Thousands of No Kings protests happened nationwide to oppose fascism, both within the current White House administration as well as locally.

Speakers included Jacqualyne Johnson, the mother of Anthony Johnson Jr., a 31-year-old Marine veteran who died in Tarrant County Jail during a routine shakedown of his cell on April 21, 2024, when a jailer kneeled on his back after pepper-spraying him. Anthony told jailers that he could not breathe twice while foaming at the mouth before he died.

Jacqualyn told the crowd, “Tarrant County has already spent over 600,000 dollars — and counting — of my taxpayer money and yours to defend the jailers involved in my son’s death, and we haven’t even been to trial. I’m not only a victim. I’m a taxpayer paying for the people who murdered my son.”

Another speaker was Amanda Arizola. The COO and co-founder of CoAct, a social design studio based on community-driven solutions who helped guide JPS Health Network during the pandemic, spoke about the cycle of jail deaths: People enter the building, their health declines, they end up in JPS, and they don’t survive.

Arizola said, “When someone moves from the county jail to a county hospital and does not survive, that is not two separate failures. That’s one system failing in two places, and we owe this community better.”

Since 2017, the year Bill Waybourn was elected sheriff, more than 70 people have died while in custody. Many suffered from untreated mental illnesses and were turned away from the system only to die in jail from medical neglect.

Unlike previous local No Kings protests, this one featured Latino and Indigenous dance troupes, showing that Fort Worth should be a community that welcomes nonwhite culture in the face of increasing systemic bigotry.

In the crowd, large signs showing those arrested during the Prairieland ICE Detention Center protests could be seen throughout most of the rally.

While local issues were paramount, speakers and marchers also addressed national ones, including accountability for those involved in the Epstein files, an end to unconstitutional ICE activity, and an overhaul of the economic system that allows billionaires to hoard resources and escape legal responsibility.