Police presence, road closures expected in downtown Greenville for gun violence protest

Those in downtown Greenville can expect road closures and a heightened police presence as a march to protest gun violence takes place Saturday.

About 1,000 people are expected to attend Saturday's March for Our Lives as of Thursday afternoon, according to a city permit for the event.

The march in Greenville is one of hundreds taking place worldwide Saturday in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that left 17 dead last month.

People across the Upstate will be gathering at North Main Street and Beattie Place at 2 p.m. Saturday to call for legislators to curb gun violence in schools, said Avi Goldstein-Mittag, an event organizer.

The march will go from NOMA Square to City Hall, ending with speakers there at 4 p.m. The march is largely student-run and mainly students are expected.

North Main Street from Beattie Place to North Street will be closed from 1 to 2 p.m. North Main Street from North Street to McBee Avenue will be closed from 2 to 3 p.m. North Main Street from McBee Avenue to Broad Street will be closed from 2 to 5 p.m.

An application for a special event permit for the march was approved by the city earlier this month.

Goldstein-Mittag is a 2016 graduate of Oakbrook Preparatory School in Spartanburg. He is now a freshman at Princeton University who took a gap year to take part in community service work in the Upstate, he said.

"We are exclusively doing this for the students," he said. "We have had a lot of help from adults and other people, but the ones leading it and organizing it are all students."

The city also received a notice of an intent to picket for Second Amendment rights from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in the One Plaza area. About 50 people were expected to participate, the notice states.

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In light of the demonstrations, attendees can expect to see a larger police presence than what would normally be downtown, said Greenville Police Department spokesman Donnie Porter.

Officers are working with other city departments to ensure an orderly gathering of those participating in the March for Our Lives rally and others, Porter said.

"Anyone in the downtown area will see a much higher police presence than normal and a number of plain clothes officers working and other tactical resources at our disposal should a need arise," Porter said.

Porter added that the department is also working to ensure protesters' First Amendment rights without jeopardizing the primary goal of safely protecting citizens.

He said the officers' efforts are to uphold safety so that businesses downtown can continue to operate normally before, during and after the march.

Goldstein-Mittag said he invites anyone to join the march to support the cause.

"We’re asking people to march with students as a way to stand up and demand lawmakers to find solutions that would end gun violence in schools," he said.