When does a protest become a riot? More important, why does a protect become a riot? I dug deep into that topic before writing my extended protest scene for Beautiful and Terrible Things, to ensure its authenticity. (I have, thankfully, never been at a protest that turned violent.)

As I suspected, a number of forces are at play when a crowd of peaceful protestors crosses a line into violence. I’d like to briefly speak to that point, which I hope you find as fascinating as I do, and then I’ll present an excerpt from the riot scene in the book for your reading pleasure.

The Psychology of a RiotPhoto credit: EV on Unsplash

When I wrote my long scene about a protest-turned-riot, I called it “The Anatomy of a Riot” in my head. But maybe I should have called it “The Psychology of a Riot.”

Mob mentality is a real thing, but it’s not what drives rioting, according to research. Mob mentality is essentially mindless action, having no control over yourself and doing whatever the larger group is doing. The National Library of Medicine (which falls under NIH, the National Institutes of Health) posted a paper a few years ago about an experiment to investigate the real psychological factors of rioting.

One of the conclusions of the research was this: “Our results add to the evidence that essentialism—the notion that riotous crowds are simply made up of violent people—is an inadequate explanation.”

The study found:

People protest because they believe there “is a shared problem and that collective action can…change things”When people know or feel they are at a disadvantage compared to others, they have higher levels of frustration. (Makes total sense!)Teams put at a disadvantage in the experiment were more prone to vandalism.But frustration alone does not result in violent behavior.Their identification with the group, and the situation itself, are also factors in if and when a group crosses a line into violence.

The situation is a major component in this protest stew. As the study’s authors say, “Because people were randomly assigned [in this experiment], collective violence [was] produced by the situation alone.”

Having said that, “agitators” are a real thing too—individuals with ulterior motives who can benefit from the chaos when a protest spirals out of control. The curfew in Los Angeles earlier this month was enacted to separate the peaceful protestors from the agitators, who tend to hang around after the curfew. In this news article, the LA police chief confirmed the existence of agitators who “show up at demonstrations to cause trouble.”

Excerpt: Anatomy of a Riot

In my extended riot scene from Beautiful and Terrible Things, I tried to present many of these factors as one might experience them in real life, showing how all six friends are impacted by the protest, with one even crossing an ethical line. I hope what is presented in this excerpt from that scene feels authentic. Does it ring true to you? Click through to this post on my blog here and let me know in the comments.

A smattering of cards and flowers rested on the section of blood-stained sidewalk where the homeless woman died. Sunny placed a handmade bouquet of frilly pink and yellow snapdragons, tied with a strand of cork-colored jute, on the concrete deathbed. They bowed their head, lips moving silently, then spoke softly. “I brought you snapdragons because they symbolize grace and inner strength. And presumption. I know you were more than they said. God bless, Queenie.”

They moved on toward the subway station to meet the others at City Hall. A wave of people, some carrying signs about Queenie, swept past in the other direction. Curious, Sunny changed course to join, thinking the protestors must be targeting the police precinct they knew was nearby because their dad had worked there a few years before.

At the police station, their stomach soured. Scores of protestors occupied the street in a tense congregation. Fifty or more police in black helmets with clear visors lined the sidewalk in front of the station.

A familiar chorus wafted toward Sunny but offered no comfort. “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!”

Sunny frowned and pressed on. The heat of the crowd melded with their own body heat. They bumped up against a narrow wall of people, five or six rows deep, running along a makeshift series of temporary wooden barriers separating protestors and police at the sidewalk. Helmeted officers formed an ominous wall, long black riot batons at the ready. Negative energy crawled over Sunny’s skin. Body odor and steamy fear wove through the air around them.

“I’m Black and I’m proud!” a man shouted into the lull when the first chant subsided. His eyes caught Sunny’s. He wore glasses, a black suit jacket, and white dress shirt. He smiled and stopped chanting. “I am Etufu,” he yelled with a lilting accent they couldn’t identify.

“I’m Sunny,” they said, stepping closer and joining his cry.

The police stood impassive.

Sunny leaned into Etufu as a young woman in a bright yellow shirt with elaborate braids coiled atop her head pushed past. She broke through to the front row of protestors and thrust her fist at the cops. “Stop killing us! When’s it gonna stop?”

Sunny cringed as others began taunting the police. A few protestors surged forward. The wooden barriers tipped precariously. The cops maintained position but raised their batons horizontally, as one unit, keeping the protestors on their side of the invisible plane. Sunny held their breath.

A full plastic water bottle sailed overhead, drawing Sunny’s eye up. It smacked into a police helmet and bounced off.

Photo credit: Koshu Kunii on Unsplash

Etufu stepped toward the police line, paused, and stepped again. Sunny grasped his arm. He stared, waiting. Sunny could barely hear themself over the crowd’s rising taunts and jeers. “Violence is not the answer.”

“This is not violence,” he yelled. “This is controlled fury born of a lifetime of being marginalized. Of being told how lucky I am to have so little. Come with me or let me go.”

Sunny let go.

He nodded and moved away. He shouted and shook his fist at shoulder level, reminding Sunny of a young child tentatively challenging a parent, unsure if it was a smart move.

The woman with the braids backed up, almost stepping on Sunny’s toes. She fired a water bottle at the police. As her arm shot back to her side, her elbow caught Sunny’s chin. The impact reverberated through Sunny’s skull.

“Sorry,” she said with a glance.

Sunny cradled their chin with one hand and grabbed the woman’s arm with the other. The limb quivered in Sunny’s grasp.

The woman faced Sunny. “What?”

“I’m Sunny. What’s your name?”

The woman cocked her head and squinted. “Lateisha. Why?”

“This isn’t right,” Sunny pleaded. “There are other ways. Violence is a crime.”

Lateisha’s head drew back as she faced Sunny. “You serious? So’s murder,” she shouted. “What can they do to us? We’re in prison already. My skin is my jail. Yours, too.”

“You think I don’t know that? You think I’m not angry and hurt? But breaking the law doesn’t help!”

Lateisha scoffed. “The law never protected me. Not even as a kid. Not from my mother’s boyfriends. Not from my foster parents. The law doesn’t care about me. So why should I respect the law? We got to stand up for ourselves!”

Sunny frowned.

Lateisha shook her head. “You go be the peace police if you want. But get out of my way ‘cause I’m here to be heard!” She twisted away from Sunny and shoved her way forward again.

The protestors’ momentum threatened to pin the cops against the police station wall. The police breached the barricade and infiltrated the street. They waded in and beat people back with batons. A strange guttural chant rang in Sunny’s ears. It finally formed words they could comprehend—the police were commanding, “Move back. Disperse. Move back. Disperse.”

Sunny watched Lateisha slip in the crush of bodies and fall to one knee. Eyes wild, she gazed up at an anonymous man in black uniform towering over her. She roared up and heaved all her might against her attacker. The cop rained blows on her shoulders, forcing her back to the ground.

Bile stung Sunny’s throat. They inched away through the people surging toward the police. They saw Etufu and stopped. The bespectacled man conversed bizarrely with a policeman who was slowly pushing the man back. Etufu didn’t resist. The cop moved him more with body language than baton. Sunny glimpsed a brown neck between the cop’s helmet and collar. They stepped closer to hear.

“You’re a Judas,” Etufu was saying in his accented English. “You are Black first. Cop second.” He spoke loudly but calmly as if socializing at a party.

“And don’t forget you’re more than an angry protestor,” the policeman said. “We’re not that different.”

“But you are part of a racist, oppressive system.”

“If we don’t work from inside, brother, it’ll never change. Now stay back and out of trouble.”

The cop placed his hand on Etufu’s chest and pushed softly. Etufu froze with hands up, unsure what to do. The cop turned away, reaching up under his visor to wipe his face with his hand. Etufu held his ground silently as the chaos enveloped him.

Sunny hesitated, then moved toward the sidewalk on the far side of the street. A guy clambered down from a metal trash can chained to a lamppost and ran screaming into the surge. Sunny took his spot, using the lamppost as leverage to reach the top of the trash can. They clung to the light pole, their sneakers straddling the hole in the lid’s center. Glass crystals crunched underfoot.

Sunny’s eyes watered. Their heart tugged with each push and pull by protestors and police. The din hurt their ears. Under the streetlamps’ harsh orange light, the protestors looked vulnerable in their light clothing and bare skin, armed mainly with anger. The cops’ ominous face shields hid their humanity, but Sunny knew they were like her dad, most of them—good people wanting the right thing. More water bottles bounced off of helmets. Batons rose and fell, hitting flesh with sickening thuds.

“It’s too much,” they said.

No one heard them speak.

Tears flowed down their cheeks and collected at the jawline, dripping off when the surface tension became unbearable.

They slid their hands down the light pole and slumped into a squat on the trash can. “It’s too much.”

* * *

Three blocks away, a man named Joe Brown and his number-two guy Daryl reclined against a brick building. Joe was squat and hulking in his dark clothes, Daryl taller and wiry. Both carried bulky black gym bags.

Daryl stared straight ahead while talking from the side of his mouth. “Should we start?”

“Soon. Patience.” Joe’s eyes tripped around the scene, gauging the crowd’s agitated mood, analyzing the intimidating police presence. A passing woman held out a joint. “No thanks,” he said, his eyes flicking beyond her. He inhaled deeply to center himself and texted his crew. “Start the distractions. Meet in 15, ready to work.”

He raised the hood of his sweatshirt, leaving only a dark beard visible. He and Daryl separated. They gravitated toward tense spots based on the crowd’s body language and volume. A shouting match developed in front of Joe. Perfect. He waited while others gathered, drawn to the altercation, then shoved a woman into another woman, making one fall and the other flail for balance. He faded back as a bystander screamed. A policeman rushed up and raised his baton but then lowered it, unsure where the danger lay.

Photo credit: Luca Discenza on Unsplash

The shattering cry of breaking glass down the block reached Joe’s ears. Good job, Daryl, Joe thought. Heads turned toward the noise. Joe plucked a brick from his bag and heaved it into the closest shop window. He stepped back and looked away as the pane shattered. People screamed and reflexively withdrew from the flying fragments, jostling him.

A policeman shoved a mouthy protestor who immediately clammed up, palms out in a gesture of surrender. Joe looked away and hip-checked the protestor into the cop’s vested chest. The cop howled and brought his billy club down on the protestor’s head. The protestor crumpled to his knees. The cop hit again.

Another crash sounded, closer than the first one. Joe smiled. Freelancers already. That was too close to be Daryl.

He strode down the street southbound as chaos billowed behind him. Bullhorns began to squawk. Sirens blared. Crashes, thuds, and screams punched the thick night air. A line of police marched in from the south with rigid, threatening stomps. Dehumanized by full riot gear—shields, helmets, bulletproof vests, shoulder and knee pads, shin guards. Like an echo, a faint clamor of stamping feet approached from the opposite direction. Probably a good block away, he guessed. They were going to squeeze the protestors from both sides—force them off the main retail street and into the side streets. Dispersion by force.

Joe slipped past the advancing line of cops—head, eyes, and hands down—unthreatening. Once past, he hurled another brick—right at a cop’s head. The man’s face shield cracked. His head jolted.

The battalion of cops reached the main crowd, human tanks plowing into the people. Unprepared protestors shrieked and struggled. Dove out of the way. Shields pushed people aside like flies. Batons worked systematically. Sirens blared from several directions. At the cross street, a string of police vans blew by.

Joe smiled as he jogged to the meeting point. Bedlam achieved.

Video Introduction to Beautiful & Terrible Things

To read the full protest/riot scene, and find out which character crosses a line as the event unfolds, check out the novel. Beautiful and Terrible Things is available in audiobook, ebook and paperback format. Click here to see which formats are sold where. (It’s also on Target.com and Walmart.com.) Click here to read more about the book including awards won and what people say about the story.

Or here’s another easy way to learn what the book’s about: This clip shows me describing it — the themes, why I chose almost-30 for my characters’ ages, and the overall plot — in a recent podcast interview for Life Unscripted:

Watch the full Life Unscripted podcast episode here if you’re interested.

The post Book Excerpt: Why Does a Protest Become a Riot? appeared first on S.M. Stevens.