Hours-long protest follows video of SBPD officer detaining teen

The protest began in the afternoon at the McDonalds where the incident occurred, “All we want is for the community to come together so we can grow and move forward from this situation and become better… on both sides of the fence,” said a member of the New Black Power Movement of South Bend and All Power while protesting, Blu Casey.

At the conference, SBPD Chief Scott Ruszkowski explained he, and the Use of Force Committee, found nothing wrong with how the officer handled the situation.

“This is an issue when people don’t do this for a living, we do do this for a living and don’t want these things to happen, but on the flip side, you don’t want somebody taking off, at the least case scenario, and certainly not taking off and running in front of a car and getting hit or something really bad happening… some of the comments of, you know, the brutality and the manhandling, none of that happened. Unless you saw something in that video different than what I did, or that what the captain did, or that what the use of force committee people did,” said Ruszkowski.

Many of the protesters said they disagree, marching from the McDonalds to the County-City building about an hour after meeting. Once there, they continued their protest.

“Definitely could have been handled differently. I’m trained in de-escalation. I’m trained in conflict resolution, and a child should never have to be held down by an older adult, by a cop,” said Casey.

After a while, they made their way inside the County-City Building to attend the Community Police Review Board meeting that started at six. Many spoke at the podium during public comment, explaining the three reasons they were protesting.

“…speak in support of the very reasonable demands given by Black Lives Matter South Bend and the New Black Power Movement of South Bend. Number one, financial compensation to the child and her family, number two, an independent investigation by the Community Police Review Board, and number three, ending the $25 an hour fee for access to body camera footage,” said Dan Fisher while speaking at the podium.