Modesto police face scrutiny over enforcement of No Kings protest. Here’s why
The Community Police Review Board rearranged its agenda and pointed tough questions toward the Modesto Police Department after hearing public comments at its Wednesday meeting.
Attendance and the number of public speakers were unusually large for the meeting. Typically, no more than a dozen audience members show up. However, about 60 people attended Wednesday night, with nearly half providing public comment — all condemning and questioning the MPD’s tactics during protests last Saturday.
The No Kings protest at Graceada Park drew thousands of people. The ICE Out protest at Tenth Street Plaza, which later joined the larger group at the park, drew about 100 people. Both, by observation, were peaceful.
However, MPD was prepared for them not to be. Officers wore tactical gear and were armed with nonlethal weapons. Some were in unmarked cars.
Six people were arrested the day of the protests. Some were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct and obstructing officers. Some were arrested for violating restrictions on the use of specified items during a public assembly — notably for wearing masks.
The ordinance banning masks at public protests was the main concern of those who spoke at Wednesday’s CPRB meeting. However, so was the way MPD enforced the ordinance.
Bianca Lopez, a co-organizer of the protest, likened MPD’s response to the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates — hopping out of unmarked cars and grabbing someone in a crowd to arrest them.
“Not one person was asked why they were wearing a mask,” said Lopez. “Not one person was given a reason for why they were being arrested. They were taken, they were snatched, they were kidnapped and then they were jailed for almost 12 hours. That should have been a citation, so obviously this was a fear tactic.”
Lopez also criticized the mask ordinance, calling it unconstitutional. She said she and other community organizations plan to bring a group to the next City Council meeting to demand it repeal the ordinance. Lopez later in the meeting called for MPD Chief Brandon Gillespie to resign.
Gavin Bruce, another public speaker, also likened MPD’s tactics to ICE and accused MPD of trying to escalate the situation into one it had prepared for, instead of the one it saw. Bruce said police officers “use discretion every day” for things like a speeding ticket or a “rolling stop” at a sign. He questioned why MPD did not use discretion for a minor city ordinance.
“Officers are also trained in crowd psychology and deescalation, which means that they also know what it takes to escalate a situation as well,” Bruce said.
Gillespie did not answer questions regarding MPD’s enforcement at Saturday’s protests because he said he didn’t want to comment on a nonagendized topic. However, he did say the department would release a statement that night, which it did.
About an hour after the CPRB meeting, MPD issued a statement defending its enforcement of the mask ordinance, stating, “Enforcement actions were taken against individuals who willfully refused to abide lawful orders.” MPD defended its enforcement by stating, “Given the safety concerns of recent protests throughout the state, this approach helped maintain a safe and orderly environment for the vast majority of attendees who came to lawfully exercise their rights.”
Board reacts
Several board members expressed concern about what they heard during the public comment section of their meeting.
One of the complaints from public speakers was that enforcement was different between the protest at Tenth Street Plaza and the protest at Graceada Park. Several speakers claimed tha plaza protest was targeted because it was protesting ICE and was much smaller than the anti-Trump protest at the park.
Board member Austin Grant said he went to both protests and was concerned about what he saw in the difference of enforcement. He said he took his 3-year-old daughter to the first protest and that it reframed how she saw police, saying that she once had friendly interactions with them. After what she saw at the first protest, she was scared to take a sticker from an officer she knew at the Juneteenth celebration later in the day at Graceada Park, Grant said.
“Some of the Police Department people, they come out there … as we call it in the streets, they were ready for war. That’s what they’re ready to do,” Grant said. “And like when you go out there and there’s peaceful protests going on, and me as a Black man, have seen other protests happen in this city and people not get arrested. Yeah, it does make me feel a little weird.”
Michael Gennaco was at the meeting representing the OIR group, which specializes in police oversight. He said if there was a policy violation complaint made, MPD itself would have to investigate it. Gennaco said OIR’s scope is limited and it cannot conduct an independent investigation, which is what many in the audience were calling for. He said OIR could review MPD’s investigation and make a determination of whether or not it was sound.
The city hired the Southern California-based OIR Group in 2023 to serve as an independent police auditor. The scope of what OIR can do has previously been the subject of criticism by CPRB board member and NAACP Modesto President Wendy Byrd.
She critiqued OIR by saying “It’s not really providing the community with, I think, the direct action that the community thinks is going to happen at the time,” but instead waits a year to review an individual incident or, sometimes, doesn’t review one at all.
Byrd also questioned if the charges against those arrested during Saturday’s protests were necessary. She asked why guns were pointed at protesters, wanted more context about the incident and expressed concern about potential long-term consequences of charges against protesters. She suggested these could create a “prison pipeline” for people exercising constitutional rights.
Byrd said she wore a mask during the protest because she was recovering from an illness. Enforcing an ordinance that prohibits masks is against the interest of public health, she said. The city’s ordinance does list exemptions for medical and religious reasons. However, several attendees noted that police did not ask why facial coverings were being used when making arrests.
“I think that what the community is asking for, which is to repeal or revise and take another look at that municipal code, I think is perfectly rational to do that,” said Byrd. “Because if you’re just going to use it broadly and blindly to create other problems in the effort of solving one, then it’s still not going to help.”
The CPRB members agreed they would like to know more about the status of the arrests, MPD’s rationale for the enforcement of the protests and why enforcement may have been different at Tenth Street Plaza than at Graceada Park. The board unanimously agreed to move a presentation on homelessness from next month’s meeting to its August meeting to make room for a conversation on these topics.
Board members invited Gillespie and MPD to be a part of the conversation. Board members mentioned that if MPD is investigating complaints made from the public, it may not be able to comment due to an ongoing investigation.
The next CPRB meeting is scheduled for July 16 at 5:30 p.m.
This story was originally published June 19, 2025 at 3:37 PM.
