Driver with rifle detained, let go after confrontation at anti-Trump rally
During an anti-Trump rally that drew hundreds to the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, a driver who left his truck in Trump gear to confront crowd gets head butted, returns with a rifle. No arrest made
During an anti-Trump rally that drew hundreds to the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, a driver who left his truck in Trump gear to confront crowd gets head butted, returns with a rifle. No arrest made
One man who retrieved an assault-style rifle from his pickup truck and carried it along the edges of a rally at the Tippecanoe County Courthouse was briefly detained by police before being released Saturday afternoon in downtown Lafayette.
The man, not immediately named by police, got out of his truck to confront demonstrators crossing Third Street at Columbia Street on a march to the courthouse on a day of anti-Trump “Hands Off” rallies nationwide, according to accounts by Lafayette police and people on the scene.
Police say the man told them he was frustrated that he couldn’t make a right hand turn from Columbia Street onto Third Street, amid hundreds of people gathered just after noon Saturday.
Video footage offered to Based in Lafayette from witnesses showed the man – wearing a white “Make America Great Again” hat and a gray hoodie that read, “Trump: Better coverage than 5G. Can you hear us now?” – leave his truck on the street to go chest-to-chest with several demonstrators, his hands in the air as he argues face-to-face with people at the corner. (Video footage shared with BiL shows people at the corner using the crosswalk to get across Third Street.) After he was shoved back by a demonstrator, a man wearing a hoodie head-butted him in the face.
Video shows the man going back to his truck and retrieving an assault-style rifle from the driver’s side of his truck and coming back to the corner, his nose bloodied and telling people to call 911. He walked along the lines of demonstrators on sidewalks outside the courthouse, first along Third and then on Columbia, as people shouted that he had a gun.
Lt. Shana Wainscott, of the Lafayette Police Department, said the man was handcuffed and taken a block from the courthouse square as police investigated. Wainscott said that, based on security footage from city cameras downtown, the man pulled the gun from his truck for self-protection after being assaulted. She said the man did not point the gun at anyone, so he was allowed to leave without being arrested.
Police said they were trying to identify the man who headbutted the driver during the altercation on the street.
“That was fucked up,” Katelyn Foster, a Lafayette resident who witnessed part of the confrontation, said. “Who pulls a gun out in a big crowd like that? … We’re living in some messed-up times.”
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The rally, the latest in a series since President Donald Trump took office for his second term in January, started with a march across the downtown bridges from the Margerum Fountain in West Lafayette’s Tapawingo Park.
Sheila Rosenthal, among the demonstration organizers, told the crowd at the courthouse that they’d counted more than 600 people crossing from West Lafayette to Lafayette. Those people were greeted by at least 100 more people carrying signs blasting Trump administration policies on trade, immigration, education, health care and more.
The rallies across the country – organized by Indivisible and other groups – were designed to show a critical mass of people pushing back against Trump’s moves since taking office for his second term.
“It’s kind of nuts, right?” Emily Stillworth, who drove from Crawfordsville for the downtown Lafayette protest, said. “I knew a lot of people would show up. I wonder how many more decided to come after looking at their 401(k)s the past two days. Can you say, Yay, tariffs?”
Kathy and John Dale’s Ford Maverick played home base Saturday for speakers and musicians, parked along Columbia Street, just outside the courthouse, as it has for two other rallies since January.
“Holy cow, this is more people than we expected,” Kathy Dale said, over the sound of honking horns from passing cars. “This has been incredible. It’s a very positive crowd, excited and, well, mad, too. … We’re organizing an action network to kind of keep people in the loop and keep amplifying the stuff that people are doing to keep bringing it in front of the people that can make a change.”
Denise Wilson, who assembles a community choir called Blue Moon Rising, led the crowd in call-and-response songs, between speeches and chants. Crowds kept to sidewalks by Lafayette and Tippecanoe County police, covered most of three sides of the courthouse an hour into the rally. Dwindling crowds later in the afternoon were greeted by drivers “rolling coal” and spewing black exhaust down the street.
“I can just tell that the energy here feels different today,” Will Persin, a Lafayette resident, said. “And there's a lot of people here that are first time protesters, people that have never been involved before with politics. … There’s a lot of just individuals that want to show up and want to do something. Now’s the time.”
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Having been there today, marching into the courthouse block just as the driver with the assault rifle was being arrested, I am keenly interested! My question: as the (unfortunately violent) head-butter did *not* pursue the yelling driver, and the driver walked back around to the far side of his truck to retrieve and brandish the rifle, at what point does a situation cease to be “self defense” and become instead retribution?
This was not self-defense. Period. You cannot instigate the fight and then claim self-defense. If the danger ends, you can’t claim self-defense. Lafayette police should be ashamed of themselves.