While it’s safe to say that thousands gathered in downtown Chicago for the coordinated “No Kings” protest, it’s a bit more difficult to estimate the exact number of people who took to the streets Saturday.
Some outlets have reported that 15,000 to 75,000 people took part in the protest organized to coincide with a military parade in Washington, D.C., to mark the Army’s 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday.
But crowd-size experts said it was more likely that between 10,000 to 15,000 filled the streets of the Loop.
“This size is fairly typical for a peaceful protest,” said G. Keith Still, professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in the U.K. “In this instance, the density, the area, the way in which they’re moving through that space, it looks like the police were coordinating with the organizers. The density is low enough it looks as if it was a well-managed, well-organized crowd, and the numbers are suitable for that space that we’re working within.”
The crowd gathered at Daley Plaza on Saturday afternoon for a rally before marching through the streets downtown.
Based on photos and videos of the event, Still estimates there were about 1 to 2 people per square meter. Daley Plaza is approximately 10,000 square meters, Still said.
Thousands march through the Loop on Saturday. G. Keith Still, a professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in the U.K., calculates that based on photos and videos of the event, there were about one to two people per square meter, and Daley Plaza is approximately 10,000 square meters.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago police said they believed the crowd to be approximately 15,000 — a much more realistic number than the 75,000 reported by progressive advocacy group Indivisible Chicago.
“Police officers are trained to do accurate crowd count — they need to know that for budgetary purposes — so they tend to get those estimates a lot more accurate if they’ve been trained accordingly,” said Still, who also helps train U.K. police public event commanders. “When we train police officers we run a couple of our courses on how to estimate and evaluate crowd density and crowd flow.”
But Chicago wasn’t the only city that saw large crowds Saturday. The rallies and marches were also held in Evanston, Oak Park, Des Plaines, Highland Park, Geneva and other suburbs and in cities and small towns across the United States.
The demonstrations came amid rising tensions in the last few weeks over Trump policies that saw the president send 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles. It was the first time in six decades that a U.S. president had called in the National Guard without a request from a governor.
Trump said he took that rare step to protect federal property in the face of protests in Los Angeles over his immigration raids by ICE agents, calling the demonstrators “paid insurrectionists.”
Chicago’s protest remained mostly peaceful.
One protester, a 16-year-old boy, was arrested during the march and charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery against a police officer, authorities said. Four people were arrested near Ida B. Wells Drive and Clark Street and cited for obstruction of traffic. Six others were arrested near the Loop, five were charged with reckless conduct and one with resisting a peace officer.