A protest condemning police brutality and state oppression ended up getting a police escort through the Oread neighborhood and downtown Lawrence on Saturday night.

A little before 7:30 p.m., a group of more than 30 protesters took off from South Park marching in the street, banging on drums, carrying signs and shouting chants that denounced the police.

As the group moved up 14th Street and along Kentucky Street, police provided an escort and stopped traffic at intersections so none of the protesters would get hit by vehicles.

The march continued east on Sixth Street and through a busy Massachusetts Street before ending near the Douglas County Courthouse at 11th and Massachusetts streets. Many of the participants dispersed into the Solidarity! Revolutionary Center and Radical Library, 1109 Mass.

Before the march, one organizer warned participants that it was not a sanctioned event. The organizer, who refused to give her name to the Lawrence Journal-World, pointed to recent incidents as reason for the march. They included the police shooting of an unarmed black man in Oakland, Calif., another police shooting of a black man in Augusta, Ga., and Israel’s attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip.