SAPD says they will have a police presence downtown to ensure the event remains peaceful.
SAN ANTONIO — For the second time in four months, Saturday will see hundreds of U.S. cities serving as the site of local “No Kings” demonstrators protesting the Trump administration’s policies.
That includes San Antonio, where local organizers say as many as 10,000 could pack Travis Park and march through downtown Saturday afternoon as part of the national series of rallies. The organizing group, 50501 San Antonio, says they’re basing the expected number of attendees off online RSVP numbers.
The last No Kings protest in the Alamo City unfolded at a point in the summer when ICE agents were seen taking people into custody outside downtown courthouses, including women and children, according to relatives of some detainees. In Travis Park, many were seen carrying signs, some of them reading “Families belong together” and “Trump’s lies matter.” One speaker led the crowd in a chants of “We won’t retreat, take the military off our streets!”
The June event, intentionally scheduled for Flag Day, was touted by national organizers as “the largest single-day mobilization since President Trump returned to office.”
“America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people,” the group’s website says.
No Kings organizers are continuing to categorize the movement as a peaceful one, saying a core principle is “a commitment to nonviolent action.” The movement isn’t allowing weapons “of any kind” at the upcoming Saturday rallies and is expecting attendees to de-escalate if the situation arises.
San Antonio police officials said they were “aware of a planned protest scheduled for Oct. 18.”
“We remain committed to protecting the constitutional rights of individuals and groups to conduct peaceful and lawful demonstrations,” an SAPD spokesperson said. “SAPD will have a police presence for the safety of those peacefully protesting.”
Governor Greg Abbott deployed Texas National Guard troops to San Antonio and other cities ahead of the June protest, when protesters marched against federal immigration raids and ICE crackdowns. Some were seen near the Alamo on that day as the nearby protest drew hundreds, but the event didn’t erupt into violence and there were no apparent signs of needed intervention from law enforcement other than a small group of protesters briefly blocking traffic near Travis Park after the event’s conclusion.
Abbott is again deploying troops to No Kings protests in Texas ahead of Saturday, this time to the state’s capital.
More than 2,500 individual events are registered with the organization’s website, with at least one in every U.S. state and commonwealth. It also arrives in the middle of a tense government shutdown, which has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday.