Downtown Colorado Springs saw streets lined with protestors gathered in opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies and the military parade he threw in Washington, D.C., on Saturday – which was Flag Day and the 250th anniversary of the Army as well as Trump’s 79th birthday.
Organizers estimated the crowd size in the ballpark of 9,000.
Protesters stretched down Nevada Ave. from City Hall, holding signs denouncing deportations, rejecting and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) roundups of immigrants, decrying attacks against women’s and LGBTQ rights, and the dilution of veterans’ and Social Security service providers.Several signs also mentioned tacos, the acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out, a reference to his flip-flopping on tariffs.
About 12 miles away as the crow flies, hikers posted a “No Kings on Public Lands” sign at the 14,115-foot summit of Pikes Peak. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, a budget reconciliation bill now in Congress, includes a proposal to sell off public lands, including in Colorado.
The mountaintop protest made the Colorado Springs No Kings protest the highest in the country, the organizers, 50501 Colorado Springs, said.
Downtown, passengers in vehicles gave the thumbs-up to the thousands of protesters on the sidewalks and medians, and held anti-Trump signs out of their cars as drivers honked their horns in a show of approval for the rally. The one or two openly pro-Trump vehicles that drove past on Saturday were jeered at by the crowd.
‘We’re not there for the rest of the world’
Chuck Walters, a 21-year veteran of the Navy and Army, said he was protesting because he “no longer recognized America.”
Walters was in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989, days after half a million people staged a protest in East Berlin. His sign on Saturday said ICE was America’s Stasi, East Germany’s secret police from 1950 to 1990, whose job included preventing East Germans from escaping over the Wall to the West.
“President Reagan said in his famous speech, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,'” Walters said. “Now, we’re building walls here in America. We’re not there for the rest of the world, under this administration.
“How things have changed,” he lamented.
At the intersection of Kiowa and Nevada, Navy veterans Keegan Baker and April Sutton held a banner that read, “Veterans are not losers and suckers” – a reference to statements attributed to Trump in his first term, which he has denied saying.
“I took the oath and served this country,” Baker said, “and I feel like everything that I stand for is being violated right now. That’s why I’m here.”
Sutton, who deployed to the Middle East and Mediterranean when she served from 2021-24, said she was protesting for LGBTQ friends who were “kicked out of the military recently, who really wanted to serve and were great sailors.” She was also protesting “for the 86,000 folks” whose jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have been cut.
“The VA saved my life,” said Sutton, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
“I used to be able to get therapy in person and now it has to be virtual, and I’ve lost one of my doctors because of the VA cuts,” she said. “A lot of veterans are pissed off right now.”
Next to her, Chris Clayton held a sign that said it wasn’t just veterans, but the American people in general who were pissed off. He was “ready to take my first rubber bullet kiss” to defend democracy, he said, referring to the less-lethal munitions used by law enforcement officers in Los Angeles in recent weeks to break up anti-ICE demonstrations.
Clayton quickly added that Colorado Springs protesters “are keeping it peaceful,” and he hoped he wouldn’t get that kiss on Saturday. Like the overwhelming majority of the protests around the country, the rally went off without incident.
The No Kings protest in Los Angeles was also peaceful until a group of agitators began throwing projectiles at law enforcement from a pedestrian bridge, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said in an interview with CBS television.
In Salt Lake City, a bystander was fatally shot when a man believed to be working with the organizers as a “peacekeeper” shot at a person brandishing a rifle. The rifleman was also struck and was taken into custody, officials said.
In Culpeper, VA., a man was detained after he drove a vehicle into protesters at the end of a peaceful rally, hitting one person, but apparently not injuring them, police said in a statement.
A White House spokesperson said 250,000 attended the military parade; exact numbers have not been confirmed as of press time.
“What Trump’s doing – wasting taxpayers’ money to throw himself a birthday party parade – is absolutely ridiculous,” said Colorado Springs protester Jamey Smith, who has expressed his intention to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterms, when he hopes to unseat the Congressman for the district that includes Colorado Spring, Republican Jeff Crank.
A day after the nationwide rallies, Trump appeared to turn a deaf ear to the millions who took part in them as he took to social media to order ICE to “do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”
“I feel like we’re heading towards a fascist government with Trump,” Smith said. “We the people need to stand up and fight back.”
The No Kings protest in Manitou Springs drew hundreds as well.
[Editor’s note, 6-24-25: The print version and earlier internet version of this article misspelled Jamey Smith’s name. The Bulletin regrets the error.]
