Over 100 protesters from Visalia and the greater Central Valley stood outside the Visalia First Assembly of God Church on Sept. 2 to protest Turning Point USA President Charlie Kirk’s arrival during the Tulare-Kings Resources for Life (TKRL) Advancing the Mission event.

The protest lasted from 5:30-8:30 p.m., although it was cut short due to safety concerns and police interference. No one was seriously injured or harmed during the protest.

TKRL is a local anti-abortion organization and the protest was largely based on abortion rights advocacy. Protest organizer Yocelyn, who chose to only be identified by their first name, was especially concerned for the minors attending Kirk’s keynote and Q&A.

Charlie Kirk is a popular conservative activist, media personality and founder of the nonprofit organization Turning Point USA, which advocates for conservative values among college and high school campuses. Kirk has long been a controversial figure, known for his strict views on abortion and christianity within schooling.

“As we know, Charlie Kirk is very much against abortion but he also spreads very heavy misinformation, and we want to make sure that they [minors attending] know that there’s accurate facts out there for them and accurate healthcare for them and abortion should be a decision that anyone can make,” Yocelyn said.

Police presence was heavy during the protest, particularly around 6:30 p.m. as attendees of the Advancing the Mission event began to park outside the Visalia First Assembly of God Church. Protester and Visalia Quaker Andrew Glazier counted 21 police cars in the area, not including police motorcycles and three unidentified drones that flew over the scene for hours.

“I can’t see any of these people [protesters] being violent,” Glazier said. “Why would you have so much security? That in and of itself is almost provocative, it’s almost like daring someone to do something stupid. It’s ridiculous to me, it’s a waste of public funds.”

When The Rampage approached the Visalia First Assembly of God Church for photographs and potential interviews, a group of Visalia police officers turned us away, saying “there were certain media allowed and you are definitely not it.”

The Visalia Police Department was not the only security present. Members of the Fresno Autonomous Brown Berets For Self Defense were also surveilling the area in an effort to protect protesters.

One of the Brown Berets, Jose Solorio, was present during the entire protest. He described the organization as a revolutionary group of native people who “will reclaim the land and it will be the downfall of the U.S. government.”

“We serve the community in any way they need, whether that means doing security like this, whether that means going on and putting on events ourselves like community events, mutual aid things, water distribution is a big thing that we do,” Solorio said. “When we say community, we mean people that are marginalized; black, indigenous, people of color, LGBTQ, women, children in poverty.”

The protest was peaceful for the majority of its length, but occasional aggravators disrupted the crowd. 

Content creator and ex-convict Josh Fulfer has been attending events and protests since 2015, but not as a participant. Fulfer was livestreaming the protest for over two hours onto his Rumble account, and got into disputes with protesters along the way. Fulfer specifically addressed the Brown Berets, calling them a racist and violent group.

“As a Trump supporter, they [protesters] call you ‘Nazi, right-wing racist,’ and even my Black friends were called Nazis and white supremacists, so I’m like ‘wait a second, I’m gonna start going out there and documenting them so I have something to counter it,’” Fulfer said. “America first. Lock down the borders, deport illegals. It’s very hard to get healthcare in California, and if you’re an illegal, they just give it to you. Those are the kinds of things that are illegal first, America last.”

Isabel Brown, the guest speaker at the TKRL event, is a popular voice among Gen Z conservatives. She authored the book, “Frontlines: Finding My Voice on an American College Campus.” Brown has a bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences and the description of her book states that during college she felt immersed in “a world of leftism, silenced by the thought police, and afraid to speak up for conservative values.”

College students at this protest contradicted her messaging, arguing that although freedom of speech is important, it does not outweigh truth and decency.

“Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences,” Erik Rodriguez, an art major at College of the Sequoias, said. “If you are spewing misinformation and hateful rhetoric, don’t be surprised when people try to silence you.”

Arion Grajeda, a Fresno City College alum, Reedley College student and M.E.C.h.A. member, pointed to a recent situation at FCC to contradict Brown’s book description. In early September, FCC students found stickers that read “Smash Zionism with White Power,” included with a QR code linked to the homepage of a white nationalist group known as Clockwork Crew.

“I mean look at what just happened on Fresno City’s campus,” Grajeda said. “If that ever was the case, if what she’s saying was the case, it certainly isn’t the case now.” 

At 6:45 p.m., a group of four men in a red Ford 5150 were stopped behind a red light, directly adjacent to the protesters. They were playing loud music and began to taunt the protesters by dancing and wiping nonexistent tears from their faces. 

Around 7:45 p.m., the same group of men returned to approach the protesters and began interacting with them in a mocking tone. One protester then tossed an empty popsicle wrapper at one of the men, and the man quickly became loud and hostile with the group. In response, at least 10 officers quickly intervened and separated the two parties.

Yocelyn said that Visalia Police were overly aggressive towards the protesters considering they were not the instigators. Yocelyn referenced previous instances when Visalia Police had “been in the wrong.” They brought up an instance in 2020 where a Black Lives Matter protester got hit by a car, and mentioned another peaceful protest Jocelyn attended where over 30 police cars unnecessarily patrolled the vicinity.

“We saw so much love in that space and so much care and so much opportunity for conversation. But at the end of the day, I’ve been taking it very hard knowing that in my position as an organizer, no matter what, I had to come to terms with the fact that some aggressors will always make their way into the crowd, and they will always be protected by the police,” Jocelyn said.

The TKRL event ended at 9:00 p.m., and the venue of 2,750 seats was sold out. To prevent potential conflict, most protesters left the scene by the time the event concluded.

The last three protesters who remained, all who wished to remain anonymous, believed it was important to show the people coming out of the event that their voices still mattered.

“I think it’s important to try and provoke some of them to actually question Kirk because Kirk had chosen to be silent after Trump called him and told him to report less on the Epstein files, which is a giant hypocritical move and a grift if he is picking a stance of protecting children and caring about life and being pro life,” a protester who asked to be called Asada said.

Earlier in the evening at the height of the protest, three women wore red robes as an homage to the Margaret Atwood novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The women chose to remain anonymous, but they spoke about their intended message and how their appearance is especially relevant now.

“The Handmaid’s Tale was a cautionary tale for women and men who love and respect them, to caution us to beware the way politics is funneling women into a secondary role,” one of these protesters said. “We’re now sort of divided into these echo chambers of opinion, so we live in a really dangerous time for that reason. We need to search ourselves and not just go along with the crowd, which is what I think I’m seeing here.”