Harrisburg’s protests were fed by out-of-town people with violent ‘agendas,’ mayor says

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 on Memorial Day 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 those efforts.

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 those people 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 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.”

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