That obviously incensed the police and led to a full lockdown. Essentially no one allowed in, no one allowed out, except for journalists. And only journalists were allowed out. They weren’t allowed to go back in. At this point, I think there’s probably only two journalists still in Poly University covering the events.

del Guidice: Cody, what would you say is the overall mood of the protesters? And given all the interactions you’ve had with them, what do you think the protesters would want to tell Americans about why they’re protesting if they had the chance to?

Howdeshell: The overall mood, overall, I would say is one of courage and determination. There are days when they have their victories and there is a lot of upbeat attitudes and there are days when they suffer defeats and certainly right now with Poly University being lost to the police and the students being brutalized and arrested, we’re not seeing a lot of joy right now, but we’re still seeing a lot of hope and a lot of determination to keep fighting.

What would they say to Americans? I think they would ask you to come over here and to join them. They would certainly ask the government to put its full force in any way, shape, or form behind them.

I think if you talked to some of the more philosophical ones, the ones that really do a lot of thinking behind the movement, they would definitely warn Americans of the consequences of allowing communism to get any foothold in your country. The consequences of allowing the Second Amendment to be eroded.

I’ve talked to many here that will tell you flat out, “We wish we had a Second Amendment. We wish we had guns.” Because it’s pretty terrifying when you’re facing off only 30 yards from police that have guns and have lethal force authorized and you have nothing but bricks and Molotov cocktails to throw at them, and your fists. And the only reason they haven’t decided to shoot you is because no one has given the word, “Kill them all.”

But they would certainly just want Americans to know what is happening because they understand that it’s not exactly well covered in the Western media. They just want the word to be out.

del Guidice: What as well do you think the protesters would say about China? Obviously … they are speaking by their very active protesting, but they don’t have freedom of speech there. … If they had the ability to speak about their true feelings, what kinds of things do you think they would say?

Howdeshell: Well, Hong Kong is an anomaly. They do have a surprising amount of freedom of speech, or they certainly did. There are crackdowns now, of course.

Well, I can certainly document several examples of vulgar graffiti telling you exactly what they think about China, but mainly they know what is happening in mainland China. Whereas the people in mainland China don’t know what is happening out here because of their lack of internet access. And they simply don’t want to see that repeated here.

They have had a lot of freedoms because they were under British rule, as funny as it sounds to be under colonial rule. They had more freedom then. And once you get a taste of that, it’s very hard to even contemplate seeing it lost.

They’re absolutely in fear that if China did decide to just come in full force and crack down … those in the protests would end up in prison, labor camps, reeducation camps, immediately. And the rest would just slowly be crushed under the oppressive thumb of communism. …

Hong Kong is a beautiful city, absolutely wonderful and vibrant people and it would just slowly become another dead, gray, communist hellhole and they’re absolutely in fear of that.

del Guidice: What kinds of people have you seen protesting? I know that you mentioned a lot of it is mainly younger students, but I’m curious as well, have you started to see any other segments of the population starting to participate such as people in the working class and professionals or has it just exclusively been students?

Howdeshell: There’s definitely people in the working class. There’s definitely professionals. …

Hong Kong is a sort of a peninsula that sticks out from mainland China and then at the south end there’s Hong Kong Island, and on Hong Kong Island is the central business district. I would just call it central and they’ve been having a lot of lunchtime walkouts where you see the streets just filled with lawyers and doctors and stock traders and bankers and professionals of all various classes and positions in suits and dresses and high heels, out there carrying their umbrellas, raising their hands in the air with five fingers representing the five demands, and chanting slogans.

At first, obviously for PR reasons, the police maintained their distance. They would just wave the blue flag saying, “Hey, this is an illegal assembly. You need to disperse.” And they usually drew the line there. But recently they’ve started firing tear gas as well and nobody that works in an office all day really wants to be exposed to tear gas. The police have managed to completely turn that segment of the population against them.

Now, with the universities, you would always see some older people out at the protests. Sometimes you see old men on the front line shouting at the police. More often than not you see them out passing out food, passing out water, passing out tissues for people to wipe the tears out of their eyes from the tear gases.

But now with the universities being attacked the way they are … honestly my entire timeline in my head is a blur because I get very little sleep these days. But when we left Poly University, which I think was about three nights ago, myself and one of the teammates here from Arizona, we were trying to get back to where we were staying, which was on the island across from Poly.

Police were rushing in from all corners of Hong Kong to attack Poly University. And everyone knew this was happening. This was now 2 in the morning when the streets are generally pretty empty. The traffic flows rather easily.

Thousands of citizens with cars had come out and clogged the intersection, stopped, gotten out of their cars, and just left them sitting there idling. Absolutely brought the entire city to a standstill so that the police could not access Poly University. And they were all blaring their horns. You thought you would lose your hearing. And the police were having to actually get out on foot and run through the blockade of cars to try to get anywhere near to Poly.

… The siege on the university, that’s brought the mothers and fathers that might’ve been hesitating before out. The night before last, they attempted to take Poly University back by a massive offensive within the cities to basically occupy the police force somewhere other than Poly University and eventually break through their lines and go into Poly University. Proper, all-out warfare.

And they formed these massive human chains miles long. You can see videos online, these massive human chains stretching for many city blocks, just … fire brigade-style passing water and food up to the front, trying to get it through to Poly University.

We were out on the streets and there were little old men and little old ladies and mothers and fathers and young kids, 15, 16 years old, people whose sons and daughters and brothers and sisters are stuck in the university out there helping.

The police are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to the PR battle because they have turned the entire population against them.

For instance, sometime a few months ago, close to the beginnings of the protest, and don’t quote me on the exact numbers, but there was a poll and I believe it was approximately 40% of the population, only 40%, approved of using violence in the protest or using violence against the police. And I’m paraphrasing this, but recently in the past few weeks they performed the same poll, same audience, and now 60% of the population approves of using violence against the police. Violent means to protest.

And that’s not just the amount that supports the protest. Far more than that supports the protest, but 60% is actually in favor of using violence because they understand what is at stake and they understand that at the end of the day, shouting in the street is not really going to affect any change when the real driving force behind the enemy is Communist China.