I suspect that said cabal didn’t anticipate the popularity of the protest and thought they could use the “racist” trope to squash it. As it grew, they doubled down thinking themselves to be superior, and powerful enough to end it with fines and loss of licenses and such. A powerful miscalculation as the protesters already had nothing to lose.
My grandpa was a cop. Sergent in the Detroit Mounted Police.
He asked me one day, “Who is the most dangerous man in the world?” Then he answered his own question, “ A man that has nothing to lose.”