Bum Rush The Crowd

Attending protests for the murder of Kenneth Jones by the Omaha Police Department. I arrived at the OPD Headquarters shortly after 6pm, and only a few protesters were gathered. Over the next few hours, this number increased to ~100 people. We chanted demands for the OPD to release the body cam footage of Kenneth Jones’ murder the night before. The police stood outside the building, which they had taped off, in tac gear, with zip ties on their belts and pepper ball guns at the ready. 

Just after 8:20, we marched down the road from headquarters, through Old Market, and made a loop back around the headquarters. I later learned that this march was what got the protest declared as ‘unlawful’. When we returned to the police headquarters, which is at an intersection, patrol cars began pulling in from every direction on the intersection. I noticed this, but continued to protest against the tape the police had erected. A few cars drove by on the road behind us, occasionally one would slow down and the driver would call us “terrorists” or threaten us. 

Then, just before 9:00pm, the police tape fell down. Without warning the police who had been standing outside of the building rushed the crowd. The crowd took off across the street and down the sidewalk caddy-corner to the headquarters. I legged it. An officer pushed me out of the way to try and catch another protester, and I fell and scraped up my hands. When I got up, the officers were handcuffing and detaining various other protesters and yelling at the protesters who were still standing around. 

Police reports later stated that one protester had shined a laser light in an officer’s face, and that he had been arrested for assault on an officer. The police department also stated that they had told us to disperse multiple times. I never heard any order of dispersal. Their actions came without warning. Why does police tape getting torn down results in a bum rush of a crowd, the firing of pepper spray, tackling protesters, pushing me to the ground, and more? Their use of violence and force was a psychotic display of power. They must have felt threatened.