SAN ANTONIO — The boarded windows on East Houston Street are only a band-aid to the deep devastation inside. Livelihoods were looted this weekend and Victor Morales had a front-row seat.
"It really does suck, I feel bad," he said. "These are literal small business owners. These are people like you and I, that have bills to pay to try and make ends meet."
Morales was at his skate shop around the corner when the commotion began on Saturday night. The violent erupted several hours after a peaceful protest at Travis Park to honor George Floyd, the Minneapolis man who died in police custody.
"It was supposed to be a peaceful protest, but people were still taking advantage of all the confusion and all the chaos," he recalled.
In the early minutes of Saturday night's riot, Morales knew he couldn't do much, but he knew he could something.
A person across the street captured him cleaning up shards of glass off the sidewalk after a business window was smashed through.
"I can't go fix a window, but I can go sweep it up," he said via FaceTime. "I can't stop people from running in there, but I can discourage them."
That's exactly what he did.
Moments later as someone attempted to steal a longhorn next door, Morales approached him as he swept more glass.
"I said, 'Why are you breaking windows and stealing things from people that have nothing to do with this? Dude, put it back.' He threw it on the ground and I picked it up and threw it back inside."
Though Morales could not save it all, it's these actions that tell a different story of our humanity. A story that carried on the next day as strangers cleaned the mess and left the building's manager emotional.
"I admit I had a tear in my eye and got a little choked up for a second," the manager of the building that was badly damaged, said. "It's just very sad that the local tenants here are now being affected so drastically."
It's these sights that Morales carries with him as he thinks about his own small gesture, a bandage to a wound that only seems to grow.
"If you protest, protest peacefully send a message," he said. "Don't use violence. Literally violence is never the answer."
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