Thanks for the details. Seems to me they took advantage of the situation, but were allowed to by the police, or whoever was in charge of making sure they complied with the agreement. How many freaking days were they allowed to shut down this highway? One 9-minute period should have been enough, especially when it comes to inconveniencing everyone else who lives there, and uses that highway. They couldn’t find anywhere else except a main highway to gather? Just plain dumb. And the person that gave them permission to do it, should be fired.
a question is, who makes such decisions.
a logical surmise might be that it is the mayor, and that such local decisions are routinely delegated to mayors by the governor. in such a scenario, the mayor would contact the state highway patrol either directly or through an intermediary such as the local police chief.
one look at the design of the funnel implies at least to me that no police chief or highway patrol person in their right mind would ever condone or otherwise allow protestors to form such a dangerous funnel/roadblock.