On May 30, 2020, beginning at 1400 hours, a protest occurred just outside the Allen County Court House on Clinton Street in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Fort Wayne Police Department incident report:
Downtown Protest
Date: May 30, 2020
Location: downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana area
Time: 1400 hours to 0000 hours
Number of Suspects Arrested: 29 people
Preliminary Charges including, but not limited to:
- Disorderly Conduct
- Failure to Leave an Emergency Area
- Rioting
Details/Summary:
Today’s protest occurred just outside the Allen County Court House. The protest started at 2pm this afternoon. Initially the protest was peaceful and orderly. Just after 5pm the protest began to become more and more disorderly. A few people began entering the street walking up and down Clinton in front of the courthouse; some were banging on passing cars. At times more and more people entered the street. At one point the crowd rushed the streets creating a difficulty with traffic flow. At one point Clinton was down to one lane. 10 Point Coalition was able to help move some cars but then became overwhelmed with the crowds. A truck in the street was swarmed and the crowd began surrounding it. Several people appeared to be banging on it and it created a panic moment with the driver speeding off almost hitting people. At that point Fort Wayne Police went into the street. They started to give orders to disperse and were met with projectiles from the crowd. The crowd refused to disperse.
The officers then began to introduce gas to the area. The crowd began to dispersed. The crowd then made its way to the Martin Luther King Bridge where they staged a sit in and some people began climbing to the top of the bridge. Officers allowed the protesters this area to protest. They then left that area went east on Fourth St and came back up Spy Run. They made their way to Berry St where they confronted County Officers and began assaulting them with rocks, bottles and other projectiles. At this point officers were deployed strategically to areas and began using tear gas to disperse the crowds. Several hot spots were targeted and the crowds dissipated greatly with those efforts.
There was one officer hurt last evening and he was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. There were reports of injuries to protestors one was serious but non-life-threatening. He was transported to a local hospital. There were over 60 arrests made by all officers yesterday. Most of them were for Disorderly Conduct, Failure to Leave an Emergency Area and Rioting.
Officers working the protests worked all day and into the late evening/early morning.
All criminal defendants are to be presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
All information is preliminary and subject to change during the course of the investigation.
Investigators are asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact the Fort Wayne Police Department at 427-1201, Crime Stoppers at 436-7867, or use the free “P3 Tips” app.
Also included with the incident report:
There were 29 people arrested day one and 68 day two along with two juveniles (day 2). Listed on their sheet are name, dob, town they are from (none listed = FW) and if they have another charge other than DC, Rioting and Failure to Leave an Emergency area it is listed on the line. If you have any questions please let me know.
Many of you have been asking about rubber bullets. I asked and was told FWPD has not deployed any. I cannot speak for County or ISP you will have to get with their people and ask what they have deployed. We have mainly used smoke and gas. Our officers were given permission to use baton rounds, if they took projectiles, but I have not been informed that any of our officers have used them up to now. Someone may have and I just haven’t been made know about it yet. I will follow up on it. A baton round is more of a hard, baton shaped munition. It is made to not penetrate.
View other posts related to the May-June downtown George Floyd protests
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