It’s impossible to find a park anywhere near Joseph and Francine Luxford’s house. There’s a car in every driveway and on every front lawn. The streets are thick with people. Seems like everyone in Houston is here.

Some of the protestors have signs with hashtags: #JUSTICEFORABBEY and #ENDRAPECULTURE are common. Others have longer messages, like: DON’T TELL MY DAUGHTER TO STAY HOME—TEACH YOUR SON RESPECT and WHAT KIND OF MOTHER RAISES THIS KIND OF MAN?

Apparently, since Shannon is nowhere to be found, his parents have become the target. As we drive, Thistle tells me that there was a story about Abbey on breakfast radio. It took the internet all of twenty minutes to find the address of Shannon Luxford’s childhood home. The #JUSTICEFORABBEY hashtag is trending, and more and more people keep showing up.

As Thistle and I push through the throng, I see that every type of protestor is here. There’s the screaming guy who just wants someone to punch. There’s the past victim, tears flooding down her cheeks. There’s the shirtless party animal, his hairy nipples erect in the cold. There’s the guy in the BLACK LIVES MATTER T-shirt, who hasn’t yet realised he’s at the wrong protest—or maybe he’ll show up anywhere there are cops.

And there are plenty of cops here, dressed like they’re ready to occupy a hostile country. Body armour, gloves, combat boots. Helmets with visors. Flash grenades and canisters of tear gas dangle from equipment belts. There are more assault rifles here than I’ve ever seen in one place. An armoured vehicle rumbles past, slowly nudging pedestrians out of the way. The sun is just peeking over the horizon.

‘Is that an actual tank?’ I ask.

‘APC,’ Thistle says. ‘Come on.’

It’s the wrong vehicle for the task. There are cars parked haphazardly on both sides of the street, and soon the APC gets jammed between them. It could probably push them aside, but not without scratching their paintwork and potentially ploughing into the crowd of pedestrians. The driver switches on the siren, as though that will get the parked cars out of the way.

A bottle explodes against the side of the APC. ‘Bon voyage!’ someone yells, cackling drunkenly.

‘This is not safe,’ Thistle shouts at me over the ruckus. ‘If one person starts shooting, half these people are dead.’ She’s not wrong. The Houston PD officers have clenched jaws and sweaty brows. The civilians are screaming at them, daring them to shoot, phones raised to capture the action.

We push through. Thistle keeps her badge in the air. Cops keep levelling their weapons at her—a black woman in a mostly white crowd—then seeing the badge and lowering them.

I’m not sure she’s making the right call. It’s only a matter of time before one of these knuckleheads mistakes the badge for a gun.