Packing For A Protest

In this section, we'll discuss what you should bring if you're planning to attend a protest. You should get things prepared for a day or two before the protest date, so when the time arrives, you're packed up and ready to go, without forgetting anything.

Items to bring:

- Long sleeve shirt or jacket and full length pants. This is to help conceal identifiers such as tattoos, birthmarks, scars or anything else which might give police a way to identify you. Whatever you wear, make sure it's just plain, no wording on the clothing.

- Protective goggles and mask. Protective goggles should be lightweight as you'll be wearing them for hours, but in the event police start spraying protesters, these will help with keeping something like pepper spray or tear gas out of making direct contact with your eyes. They'll also help conceal eye color and eyebrows to make identifying you, harder. Wearing a surgical or respirator mask will not only help conceal features, but also reduce your chance of catching whatever infections are circulating. Personally I go with a well fitted N-95 or KN-95.

- Water, snacks, wet wipes, earplugs, first aid supplies (a travel first aid kit will have bandaids, alcohol wipes, gauze etc), cash and change for transit as well as ID (only 1 piece of ID so if you lose your wallet, you still have other ID). If you have any severe allergies like to bee/wasp stings, you can bring an epipen.

- Cell phone. Here is where you need to be careful. It's preferable to bring a burner phone if possible so that if there's damage, at least it's not your main phone that you always carry. Set your phone so that it's password enabled, but NOT fingerprint/facial recognition. You also need to make sure that you turn OFF all location apps. Just put it on airplane mode, turn off your data and make sure there's no apps on, which can track/record your location. Be cautious as well about taking pictures that might reveal your specific location at a certain time. If you're arrested and phone confiscated for evidence, police can match your location with a certain timeframe and you don't want that.

What you do NOT want:

You don't want to wear any jewelry or contact lenses. Jewelry can get snagged or pulled and result in injury or choking, so no necklaces or bracelets is best, and earrings should preferably just be studs or very small fitted hoops. You also really don't want to have any sharp objects on you that police can claim as a weapon, or any recreational drugs/medications that aren't absolutely needed.