Here’s one perspective on what happened in Fort Wayne yesterday afternoon:

Protest started at 2 on the courthouse green. Peaceful, organized, resolute. Diverse crowd. I got there late but there was a powerful energy.

After a couple of hours everybody moved to line up along Clinton. Waving signs, etc. drivers loved it—pumping fists in solidarity, blaring music, pumping up the crowd.

Some people started gathering in the intersection at Clinton and main. Intersection cleared once. People filtered back in. It started to move like this, back and forth. I heard some people muttering “stay out of the street.”

I was standing back a bit on the grass. I heard the police announce something ( @JGfortwayne says it was to declare an unlawful assembly). People started yelling “the cops are putting on masks!” Then: tear gas and pepper spray.

This cleared the whole sidewalk all the way to Berry. Police blocked the street for at least a block all around. Cops in riot gear took over the courthouse green, posted up all around the courthouse. The national guard showed up. Sheriffs stood in the street with dogs.

From that moment (around 5:30), the whole tenor of the event changed. Groups of protestors were atomized in smaller face-offs with cops. The protest started to feel significantly more white. More tense. One group started kneeling in a different intersection (also now closed off).

Police again declared a different group (which appeared to be gathered mainly on the public sidewalk) an unlawful assembly, and announced anyone who stayed was risking arrest. (I didn’t see any arrests then.)

Someone started shouting about regrouping at Wayne street, but lots of people started marching down Harrison, toward and past promenade park. By then the police presence extended way beyond the original gathering, to at least the St. Marys River.

I left at this point. I wasn’t carrying a press pass, police presence was intensifying, and the conversation had changed—people didn’t seem to be talking about George Floyd anymore. After the police shot gas and pepper spray, the event turned from protest to conflict.

It’s been so long since I’ve spent time downtown, and yesterday was such a strange way to re-encounter the city—mostly deserted, boarded-up windows, occupied by a highly-visible military force.

BUT I think all of this obscures a huge takeaway: Fort Wayne, a majority-white city without a major tradition of resistance, in a reliably red district, in a reliably red state, showed up this weekend in a serious way.

Anyway, @JGfortwayne has solid coverage in this morning’s paper. Glad to be a subscriber. And @wane15 has very clear video of the moment tear gas was deployed.