Volunteers Help Clean Up After Weekend Protests In Tulsa's Brookside Area

Community members gathered together early Monday morning to clean up Brookside after the Peoria Ave. protests late Sunday left trash, rocks, and glass on the streets.

Around 9 p.m. Sunday night, some of the protesters that had been marching through Tulsa as a part of the Black Lives Matter rally made their way into Brookside. Here many others joined them, crowding the streets in front of cars and blocking off intersections. As the night continued, the demonstrations became violent as people threw water bottles, firecrackers, bricks, rocks, and more around the neighborhood and at the Tulsa Police Officers in that area. Several windows were broken at businesses and cars that were parked were vandalized as well.

Many people who spoke to News on 6 say they watched what was happening in Brookside and immediately knew they wanted to help as soon as it was safe. Brookside Church members, those who marched in the Black Lives Matter rally, and more came out through the day to pick up trash and ask the owners of damaged businesses if there was anything they could help with.

“We are taking buckets of water and brushes to make sure there’s no vandalism and if there is well just try to scrape it off as much as possible, talk to those different businesses to see if there’s anything inside we need to do if there’s nothing we’ll move to Greenwood to make sure we clean up everything from last night and then we’re good we just want to make sure Tulsa is okay,” says Tykebrean Cheshire, the Black Lives Matter Rally organizer.

Throughout the day more people showed up to walk the streets with trash bags. Many of them saying they just want to make sure Brookside looks even better now than the way it usually does so they can prove their message of peace.

A youth group and church members from Brookside Church were along the first people to start restoring the area. Brandy McCombs says they filled up at least eight trash bags within just two hours.

“We’ve had a lot of broken glass, rocks, bricks, we’ve had a lot of pepper balls, weird pieces of metal, water bottles, but the big thing is glass and rocks and pepper balls. We are trying to get the small debris so if people are wearing flip flops or young children are running around they won’t get hurt, we want to make sure it’s safe” McCombs says.

By the end of the day, at least a dozen trash bags were filled by various community members. There were also people replanting the flowers that had been ripped out of their pot and some going as far as washing the pepper ball and tear gas residue off the sidewalks.