The morning after violent protesters vandalized downtown Reno, the community stepped up to help pick up the mess. Countless residents spent the day sweeping up broken glass, cleaning up graffiti, picking up trash and boarding up broken windows. Vandals damaged buildings from the Reno City Hall to the federal courthouse.

"I came down here this morning to see what was the damage, out of curiosity and immediately turned around, went home, grabbed my family and brought them down here to help," Jacob Stafford, Reno resident said.

"I believe in a peaceful protest but you have to draw the line somewhere before vandalism and protesting," Michelle Stafford, Reno resident said. "I felt that we owed it to our community and the town of Reno to come down and help."

Jaclyn Souter spent the morning, scrubbing graffiti off the Virginia Street Bridge. She says everyone is doing a great job to help pick up the pieces.

"I think the riot got out of hand," Souter said. "I think it was really uncalled for for what they did and I wanted to show my support and come help clean it up. It's nice to see that all of us got to come together and clean up everything that they did."

Reno City Hall suffered significant damage, including most of the first floor windows and some on upper floors. Inside the building, a bighorn sheep sculpture is broken, glass is scattered on the floor, a burn spot remains where someone lit a small fire, furniture is tipped over, and someone stole and burned the American flag that was on display from the U.S.S. Reno. City Leaders say the damage could have been much worse.

"Tremendous respect and thank you to all our law enforcement for showing a tremendous amount of restraint," Councilman Oscar Delgado, City of Reno said. "We could replace windows. We can replace buildings. It's hard to do that for any caring loved ones and family members that were out here."

People of all races and ages helped repair the damage. Some of them included people who joined the peaceful protest, Saturday afternoon, but were not a part of the riot.

"The people of Reno, the people of Sparks, the Black Lives Matter, that's not what we're about," Nastassia Sykes, Reno resident said. "We want to make a statement but we want it to be positive. So whoever came into Reno and Sparks and did that, that was not us."

 

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