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Thousands of people online shared their frustration at the police response. “I had runners legit crying and telling me thank you for the support… only to have the police show up, line up blocking the cheer zone, and then tell me that ill be in hand cuffs in short order,” one user commented. “Disappointing. Triggering. Not okay. This moment wrecked the vibe of something truly celebratory and beautiful,” another wrote.

Cheer squad member Asia Rawls, 32, said she felt “upset” when the police began arriving. “We didn’t hand out anything, not even a bottle of water,” she said. “We didn’t hand out beer or alcohol. It was just simply happiness.”

Rawls overheard one of the officers telling an onlooker: “You’re gonna get arrested if you don’t do what I say.”

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To back up the claim this incident was racially motivated, another running group, November Project Boston, made a social media post about their own cheer zone up at Mile 18. Out of the thousands of spectators jumping on the course and running alongside the runners, “the only group that saw a massive police presence as a result was a group of predominantly Black and brown spectators,” they wrote.

Reasonably, large events like this will cause for reinforcement of certain safety regulations. However, it is odd that out of all the cheer zones, the cops pulled up to our cookout.