S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman on today's show , the latest on a damaged CHP vehicle , and shut down of the five on Saturday. Plus a recap of San Diego's No Kings protest. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. So after all the back and forth over whether it would be safe to keep the five open during the Marines live fire exercise over the freeway Saturday , it was indeed shut down and shrapnel from a marine artillery round did indeed hit a CHP vehicle. It happened right along the five. After a shell exploded prematurely. Thankfully , no one was injured. The incident was part of a celebration honoring the Marine Corps 250th birthday , which also included speeches by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Marine Corps says it is investigating that mishap , and while all that was happening , thousands of San Diegans turned out for No Kings protest in downtown San Diego , as well as several other parts of the county , saying. Joining me now are actually two reporters who covered Saturday's events. Andrew Dyer was at Camp Pendleton when live rounds were fired for the celebration there. Andrew , welcome. Hi.
S2: Hi. Thanks for having me.
S1: Glad you're here , Andrew. Also , Katie Anastas is here. She was at Waterfront Park covering Saturday's protests there , and she's joining me here in studio. Katie. Welcome to you.
S2: Thank you.
S1: So , Andrew , I'm going to start with you.
S2: It wasn't clear that anything had happened on on Saturday from from the event. Um , the guns were several , about five miles away from where everybody was. So it was being fed in through a video , video monitor. We really didn't know what was going on. But , um , yeah , the , uh , it exploded. Uh , the CHP notified the Marines and they ended the artillery shelling early. Um , it struck a vehicle. Uh , these CHP officers were part of Vice President JD Vance motorcade. But , uh , we're kind of right there by the Las Vegas exit. You know , just waiting. Um , because the vice president was on site.
S1:
S2: 250th birthday. The , uh , semi centennial , uh , is ahead of the US's semi centennial next summer. Um , and uh , this was originally the ute had a story about a month ago. Originally this was supposed to be in November. President Trump was going to be here. It was going to be a whole thing. But that plan got scrapped. They moved it up. Um , so basically this whole exercise was for a video that the white House was going to broadcast on November 9th , which is the actual Marine Corps birthday. Um , so the exercise is being filmed by a white House camera crew. Uh , about 15,000 Marines and sailors are in stands five miles away at the Del Mar Boat Basin. Uh , and yeah , that was , uh , the essentially it there was a series of speakers. Yeah. Um.
S1: Well , I.
S2: Mean , I guess they're influencers or whatever. Right wing influencers. And then , uh , the secretary of defense and vice president. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. JD Vance okay. Well , I mean , leading up to Saturday's events at Camp Pendleton , there had also been a lot of back and forth on what would take place over the weekend and whether or not the five freeway would need to be closed , as I mentioned earlier.
S2: Um , I think we had 2 or 3 reporters trying to find out what was really going on. Um , I spent the whole day trying to find out what they were going to be launching over the five. If they're launching anything over the five. And at the end of the workday , you know , we , you know , we find out , okay , they're not going to close the freeway and it's not going to be missiles from a Navy ship. It's going to be artillery shells from there. You know , big howitzer guns. Um , so we reported that. But all through Saturday , we thought that was the end of it. Um , there was a dress rehearsal for the event on Friday , and , um , it's been reported that , you know , that was pretty disruptive. Commuters on the five didn't know anything about it. And so when those howitzers went off , uh , it was startling , to say the least , I think from the freeway. Uh , some people pulled over. Um , and. Yeah. Then Saturday morning , um , word comes down pretty early , around 7 a.m. , that they're going to close the freeway after all. Once that was announced , there was a lot of , uh , well , you know , a lot of scrambling on our part because we'd spent two days telling people the freeway wasn't going to close. So we wanted to get that news out there as soon as we could. But then , um , a lot of , uh , political figures like , you know , Darrell Issa and Jim Desmond took to social media to to kind of call what Governor Gavin Newsom was doing a type of political stunt closing the freeway to try to make Trump in the white House look bad.
S1: Okay , so.
S2: If you look at your map there , you know , Camp Pendleton is incredibly large. There are lots of places to shoot howitzers where it's really not going to bother anybody. And that's what they do. They do train with their artillery units , um , quite a bit. And they do shoot howitzers at the base. But good news is the base is very large and it's very rural. So , um , it works out. It's very unusual for them to put their howitzers on the beach and shoot them over the freeway. Um , I couldn't find anybody willing to tell me the last time it had happened. Um , just that they had the capability to do it. And their safety assessment had said that it was safe and the freeway didn't need to close.
S1: All right. Well , um , you know , hey , this was all part of the 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps. You mentioned there were a number of speakers also there. Set the scene for us.
S2: You know , the the Marines started getting there pretty early in the morning. Um , there was a lot of bleachers set up , uh , chairs and , um , no shade. It was a very sunny day , and everybody just sat there for several hours. Um , the amphibious demonstration , like I said , was miles away. So it was piped in on video. There was a PA announcer narrating the assault. Um , but it wasn't. You couldn't really hear it. From where we were at. You couldn't really see it. There were some fighter aircraft and helicopters involved , so every now and then we would get a flyover. Um , that would kind of wake people up. There was a lot of napping going on in the seats. Um , because it was just , you know , it was almost a non-event from from where we were sitting. Um , and then , you know , once , uh , the more famous speakers started to talk , um , they really picked the energy up. Um , f got a big round of applause. Um , JD Vance , who was an enlisted marine , got a big round of applause. And , uh , that was , uh , seemed to make it make it worthwhile for a lot of the folks there.
S3: Well , uh , both.
S1: Vice President and JD Vance and defense secretary or. Well , Vice President JD Vance and , uh , Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke at the event. You know what I want to I want to just play a clip really fast so people have an idea of what was said.
S4: The truth is , your diversity is not your strength. It never has been. Your strength is in your unity of purpose.
S1: All right. So that was a clip from JD Vance Andrew. What was the message from each of the people who spoke JD Vance and and Pete Hegseth.
S2: Well , I think that that particular clip was Pete Hegseth , the secretary of defense. Um , he when he took over the Pentagon , he , you know , ended all of these diversity programs , calling them a waste of time. You know , they they reinstituted a ban on trans people. And this message is very much in line with what he's been saying the whole time. He's been the secretary. And before that , when he was just a host on Fox and Friends. This was a long he has a long history of these kinds of critiques of military culture. Um , so what we saw Saturday was a bit of a watered down version of what we saw a couple of weeks ago , when he was talking to all the generals and admirals. Um , he was much more kind to the Marines. And he said , you know , I think that , you know , standards have slipped everywhere else. But you Marines , you you guys are doing it right. You know , you're the example , you're the model. And , um , that really ingratiated him with with that crowd and , uh , JD Vance message. You know , he did hit on the shutdown and he hit on some stuff , but he talked a lot about , you know , the values of the Marine Corps and the service and what it meant to him and how it made him the person that he is. Um , so , you know , he did hit on the politics and he said some stuff about racial quotas that I don't know is 100% accurate , but , uh , mostly it was just about Marines.
S1: Well , you know , Katie , you've been sitting over here quietly. Um , you know , much of the rhetoric that that we are hearing is what's galvanized these No Kings protests. You were at one on Saturday.
S5: Um , there were kind of two main groups downtown. One group started over at Civic Center Plaza. Uh , another started at Waterfront Park. Eventually , those two groups , uh , gathered together and they kind of looped around through downtown , down Harbor Drive , looped back around to the county administration building. Um , and there was also a group for families with young children so that they could gather at a smaller park and not have to do that big march altogether. Um , so it it the effort was to kind of make it accessible to kind of what type of crowd size you were you were wanting to find. Right.
S1: Right. Well , and of course , you know , ice arrest and eroding democracy , they were all , um , big issues that were , um , protested. So you actually spoke to some people who were out there and we've got some clips.
S6: We are all American. We are all here for the same reason. Um , and I think it shows a lot of the unity that we actually have. I think a lot of people don't see that there's other people that feel the fear , that feel that this is wrong. And I think being here , out here today , um , gives me hope.
S1: And , you know , this protest was is also happening during the ongoing government shutdown.
S5: Well , Mark Grace was one of the protesters I spoke to. He was carrying a sign that read hands off Federal workers. And so I went up and talked to him. And it turns out he works at the military base here in town. He works specifically in public works in a water utility section. And he told me that 12 out of the 13 people on his team were furloughed back on October 1st. The remaining one person , he says , is working without pay. And I asked him , uh , have you been , you know , have you gone without a paycheck ? And he said , yes. And here's what he told me.
S7: Luckily , my wife and I were in a stable financial situation , but many of people aren't , and those are the people that I'm worried about.
S5: So he said he was happy to see so many people out on Saturday , and that he just wants other people to know he's eager to get back to work and can , you know , continue working on these essential services for his fellow Americans.
S1: Yeah , this the personal perspective is so important to this. What about local leaders who was there and what was their message ? Sure.
S5: So a few local leaders spoke before the march. County supervisors Paloma Aguirre , local labor leaders. They brought up Ice arrests and especially their effects on working families. Um City Council member Steven Whitburn was also there. He. His district includes downtown , and he brought up another piece that was on a lot of people's minds on Saturday , which is proposition 50. Um , prop 50 would redraw some congressional districts in an effort to favor Democrats. You know , opponents say that that's undermining fair elections and moving away from an independent redistricting commission. But , um , supporters like Whitburn , you know , say this is a response to Texas redrawing its congressional maps to give Republicans an advantage. So Whitburn encouraged people to say , yes , I saw a lot of signs and stickers saying Vote Yes on Prop 50. So that was on a lot of people's minds too.
S1: And those ballots are in mailboxes as we speak. That's right. All right. Well , I've been speaking with KPBS military and Veterans Affairs reporter Andrew Dyer , along with KPBS education reporter Katie Anastas. Thank you both so much.
S5: Thank you.
S2: Thank you.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
