Elected officials took turns blasting Donald Trump before TV cameras Saturday at the “No Kings” rally and march,
But they weren’t the only public servants at one of the biggest protest events in San Diego history.
So were Casey Hickenbottom and Jeremy Ross. So were Mark Sauer and Craig Rose.
Hickenbottom, musical director of social-activist radio station KNSJ 89.1, acted as DJ for the event, spinning tracks like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”
San Diego police praise crowd as tens of thousands pack streets for ‘No Kings’ DayHe also played other ’70s soul icons — Syl Johnson, Curtis Mayfield — from a spot in front of the County Administration Center.
Encinitas resident Ross, wearing a bright orange safety vest, led chants on the route (“Whose streets? Our streets!”) and helped steer crowds as the march reached a packed Pacific Highway and Ash Street intersection.
He wasn’t at April’s “Hands Off” march from the San Diego Civic Center, however. He was at the one in Washington, D.C.
Marvin Gaye in house at #NoKings event — an hour before official start in downtown San Diego’s Waterfront Park.
— Ken Stone (@kenstonemedia.bsky.social) 2025-06-14T16:11:36.438ZRoss could be excused from local protests.
“I’m in Uganda for a couple weeks every couple months,” he said.
A longtime volunteer with Jewish Family Service of San Diego, Ross is globally recognized for his work on behalf of refugees with the Humanitarian International Non-Governmental Organization Forum of Uganda and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.
And Mark Sauer and Craig Rose?
The two former journalists at The San Diego Union-Tribune (as well as Sauer’s stint at KPBS) took on the task of herding cats.
They helped organize a press conference that included two local members of Congress (Sara Jacobs and Juan Vargas), four San Diego City Council members, Assemblyman Chris Ward, Board of Supervisors Chair Terra Lawson-Remer and reps of the ACLU, veterans groups and the San Diego Labor Council.
Most amazing: The speakers mostly kept their remarks to under a minute as the young daughters of Lawson-Remer and #AfganEvac’s Shawn VanDiver occupied themselves (one with a teddy bear) at their parents’ feet.
The officials all sought to answer the question: Why am I here?
Citing her international conflict resolution work before being elected to Congress, Jacobs said: “We know that public pressure actually does work.”
“What we know from other countries around the world who have experienced Democratic backsliding, which is what we are experiencing right now, is that if they’re able to put together a broad-based pro-democracy movement like what we’re seeing … today they are actually able to get a better democracy on the other side.”
Vargas said he was standing with the public “because we know we don’t have a king — we have a criminal as a president” who by sending the military into communities “brings terror.”
But he said Trump was losing in the courts, and “now we’re going to beat him in the streets. Fight, fight, fight — and the people are going to win.”
Assemblyman Ward said he was working hard to push back against Trump actions — “protecting our schools, protecting our health.”
“Here we say no to the authoritarian and totalitarian king would-be that we have in our White House and we are making sure that we are countering that with action right here in California.”
Councilman Raul Campillo cited the Gospel of Matthew.
“[It] teaches us that when Jesus was speaking to his followers, he pointed out rulers and high officials lord their authority over others. … We are about serving people, not lording it over people. He’s not a moral president, and we know that in our hearts.”
Councilman Sean Elo-Rivera, wearing a “Working Families Party” T-shirt, said he was furious. He said his diverse district was being terrorized.
He called Trump a failure and a weak man who is “performing for the rest of the country.” He added that, as a Californian, he wanted Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and “the fascists out of our state.”
Councilman Henry Foster said he came “because this is about right and wrong. And right now, the president of the United States is wrong. This is about love and hate and he is doing everything he can to divide us and to bring hate into San Diego. We cannot stand for that.”
(Councilman Stephen Whitburn also spoke.)
Passionate as anyone was Brigette Browning, president of the San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council.
“Our brothers and sisters are being deported as we speak,” she said. “They are performing jobs that nobody else wants to perform because they’re very difficult jobs and they’re not well-paid.
“We have to stand up for the least seen people in our community. You don’t see the people washing your dishes. But trust me, they’re back in the kitchen taking care of you.”
San Diego ACLU Executive Director Norma Chavez-Peterson recalled her group’s 105-year history of “protecting democracy.”
But alluding to Los Angeles, she said: “When protest is met with military force, when truth is treated like a threat and our rights are treated like they are disposable, we don’t stay silent. We dissent, we organize. . . . We make our collective voice impossible to ignore and we will continue to fight until we the people truly means all of us.”
Retired Marine James L. Smith II of Black Deported Veterans of America said veterans were also under attack — with cuts “that are going to affect our very existence. They’re pitting us against our brothers and sisters.”
Afghan military refugee advocate Shawn VanDiver spoke for the Unite for Veterans Coalition.
“We’re pissed off that President Trump is pitting active-duty military, Marines and National Guardsmen, against our fellow service members,” he said.
“I would challenge every veteran, every San Diegan to get up, get out in the streets, make your voices heard.”
From a small stage later in the day, Mueller She Wrote podcaster Allison Gill (also a military veteran) acted as emcee and called attention to Waterfront Park being on Kumeyaay Indian land.
Gill introduced Bobby Wallace, an activist with the Barona Band of Mission Indians, who said a prayer.
Then he grew angry.
“I’m blessed to be alive in this time when we can all make change,” he said, his voice rising, “because there are no freaking kings here on Turtle Island!”
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