Posted on 05/31/2020 5:17:26 PM PDT by lightman
In describing the events that led to violence and a standoff between police in riot gear and protesters on Saturday, Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse and Harrisburg Police Commissioner Thomas Carter said they believe the cause was an influx of people who were not residents of the city.
The protest, which began at noon and continued into the evening, was held in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.
Papenfuse said the protest was peaceful during the first few hours of the event. However, after many of the original protesters left, a new group showed up that he said was the “spark” of violence.
During a virtual press conference, Papenfuse said that as the group turned toward the intersection of State and Front streets, protesters directed their attention toward officers that were acting as traffic control. Five officers were outside the vehicle, not in riot gear, and another was inside.
This is when Papenfuse said a white woman used a pole to smash the police vehicle’s window, then punched an officer in the face.
Police have not yet identified the woman and said she could not be taken into custody at the moment due to the crowd descending on the vehicle. Papenfuse also called this group “rioters,” saying their actions included throwing bricks and causing property damage.
When the officers called for help, Papenfuse said Capitol police officers arrived and used pepper spray to get the crowd to disperse and get the Harrisburg officers out of the crowd. Two Capitol police officers were injured during these efforts.
READ: Capitol Police officers injured in Harrisburg protests were treated, released from local hospital
Papenfuse and Carter, who also took part in the news conference, said this group was the one that ended up staying in the area and not dispersing, well past the curfew eventually set at 9 p.m.
Carter said he also felt many of the later protesters were from out of the area. Carter, who has lived in Harrisburg his whole life and is entrenched in the community, said he recognized many faces during his time at the protest, and that they were trying to calm things down.
Carter wasn’t called in until back up was requested in the afternoon, with the second wave of people, he said. At that point, he saw a lot of people he didn’t know. Carter was talking to protesters in smaller groups and said when he asked people he didn’t recognize what part of the city they were from, they walked away instead of answering.
“The Harrisburg residents I know, they were trying to de-escalate the situation," Carter said. “And I’m not saying that some Harrisburg residents weren’t involved, but for those I did not recognize, they would not tell me where it is that they came from.”
Papenfuse said Harrisburg residents who attended the earlier part of the protest told him they were surprised to hear that the feel of the event had changed after they left. He said he believed this newer group of people were anti-establishment.
“I think there were other agendas there at work,” Papenfuse said. “There were clearly agendas there -- anarchist and other agendas -- that were about inciting violence. And frankly inciting violence has nothing to do with the dialogue that we need to have about how we can deal with racial disparities within our communities and within our criminal justice system.”
However, at the end of the night, Carter said the police’s goal was to disperse the crowd before any violence started up again. He spoke with the chiefs of other departments about how to prevent the kind of damage that is occurring around the country.
“We agreed that we didn’t want nightfall to come and [find] that we were in the same situation [as other cities]," Carter said.
He said while they used a show of force, including having state police put on gas masks, it was never Carter’s intention to use tear gas.
“At no time were we going to deploy any of the tear gas,” Carter said. “We just wanted to have them leave peacefully.”
Now the police will review hours of body camera footage, street camera footage, and more to try to identify anyone involved in property damage, as well as the woman who attacked police, Carter said.
“I don’t know who this young lady is,” Carter said. “I was down there at the time. Hopefully, we have her image on bodycam or we have cameras down that way down on Second Street. Hopefully, we can pick her image up. If we can, we can do facial recognition, hopefully, and you know then we’d able to shed some more light on that.”
Bernie’s Bolsheviks.
Papenfuse can sound like a pro-business centrist, almost reasonable at times, but you need to look at what he does, not what he says. He's a frickin' socialist. He comes from the old school of libtards, he hides his true intentions behind reasonable speech.
Everyone does it, but the enemedia, blacks, and the pols won’t admit it
People move for a reason, and it has less to do with skin color, than crime, schools, and culture
That’s on “them”
Anybody in Harrisburg PA is most likely from out-of-town. The city works from 9-5PM Monday to Thursday and everybody blows out of there early on a Friday. That’s what you get when your city’s only business is state government.
Yep. Something along those lines for sure.
Can you imagine if these folks got true power.
There would be major purges.
Yeah, Linda Thompson was a piece of work. Stupid as $hit.
*** This is when Papenfuse said a white woman used a pole to smash the police vehicle’s window, then punched an officer in the face. ***
See... what this oh-so liberal mayor of Harrisburg is trying to avoid saying is... white people within Harrisburg city limits on a weekend when there isn’t a Senator’s baseball game automatically means “someone not from here”.
‘
Lots of the out of towners are cousins that live in small towns that come up to blaze the City with their boys.
Twitter and Facebook do their part.
Now, Seattle and Portland - totally different.
‘
All the Mayors and Governors love a scapegoat to blame for what their own citizens are also doing and celebrating along with those doing the destruction. If you’re there among the rioters you’re just as guilty.
Anybody who is there yesterday and today know full well these are riots happening.......therefore just as guilty for being among those being destructive.
That is pretty much the case. Harrisburg City proper is small, population around 49,000. I'm sure there were protesters from the Hill (Alison Hill), a black neighborhood. I am positive there were protesters from outside the city. I can write that because I was sitting out on my deck last night, with friends from the city ironically, and my neighborhood was completely quiet. It was a beautiful evening only to be interrupted by an argument up the street. Some loud mouth black Karen was arguing with her husband about going into the city. She went. Her cuckold husband stayed behind. Normally my neighborhood is dead quiet. Turkeys of the bird variety make the most noise even though there are several negro families here.
The rioting and looting will continue until the Democrat politicians think that it’s costing them.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight
Because black people have never burnt their own hoods down
.
This has become the new LIE of the left. Sure ANTIFA is there but so are black hood rats. We HAVE EYES and can see who it is.
Perhaps you could arrest some of them, put them on trial, do an investigation, and let the whole country learn about them, where they came from, who is paying them, and where they learned their trade.
//
Agreed. Lets see more mug shots and names.
You left out waterboarding them.
“One municipality I was reading about had 86% of the 36 people they arrested, locals.”
Oddly quite believable. 14% organized violent radicals is all you need to set off the fireworks. Break a few windows and doors and start stealing. Then much of the rest will follow so they can get their fee S—t also. Classic radical mob organizational rules.
Perhaps you could arrest some of them, put them on trial, do an investigation, and let the whole country learn about them, where they came from, who is paying them, and where they learned their trade.>>> never happen. Rioters in DC on inauguration day all let go free. charges all dropped. i was tracking about 20 of the cases.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.