LPD asks for video after MAGA driver gets head-butted, carries rifle into ‘Hands Off’ rally Saturday
Driver with rifle says he was provoked. Witnesses say he instigated. Police now asking for more video of scene at courthouse. Meanwhile, man who head-butted the driver arrested, tells his account
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LPD ASKS FOR VIDEO AFTER MAGA DRIVER GETS HEAD-BUTTED, CARRIES RIFLE INTO ‘HANDS OFF’ RALLY SATURDAY
Lafayette police said Sunday afternoon that they are still investigating and collecting video from bystanders in a case Saturday in which a driver dressed in Trump gear retrieved a gun from his truck and walked through a crowd arguing with demonstrators at a “Hands Off” rally Saturday afternoon in downtown Lafayette.
Meanwhile, a Lafayette man accused of head-butting James Jordan – the driver in Make America Great Again gear, who’d gotten out of his truck to confront demonstrators at a crosswalk – was arrested and jailed hours after the demonstration Saturday, according to police records.
Jeremy Marks, 36, of Lafayette, was arrested Saturday evening on suspicion of battery resulting in bodily injury, according to Tippecanoe County Jail records. He was released Sunday morning.
On Sunday, Marks said he was at the rally with his fiancé and only reacted the way he did because Jordan was yelling about traffic and pushing his way into the crowd, knocking into an older woman who was standing there for the rally. Marks said Sunday that he was merely trying to protect people and believes his arrest was unfounded.
“I couldn’t give two fucks about politics or Donald Trump or any of that,” Marks said. “I was there because my fiancé wanted to be there. … This guy was screaming, putting his hands on an older lady. He was being the aggressor. I saw him grab that little lady and it was like, what are you doing? And I just lost it.”
By Sunday, additional video surfaced showing that initial confrontation followed by scenes of Jordan retrieving a pistol resembling an assault-style rifle from his truck and walking through a crowd of hundreds gathered for a rally along sidewalks outside the Tippecanoe County Courthouse.
Jordan, briefly detained by Lafayette police Saturday, was not arrested that afternoon and continued Sunday to defend his actions as legal and provoked by an anti-Trump crowd – first by marchers using a crosswalk, blocking him from turning onto Third Street, and then by a head-butt that bloodied his nose.
On Sunday, LPD sent an update, saying the investigation was still open.
“At this time, initial findings indicate that the firearm was not knowingly and intentionally pointed at any person,” according to LPD’s release Sunday. “However, the presence of a firearm in a tense, crowded public space understandably caused alarm among community members.
“The Lafayette Police Department is actively reviewing video footage and other available evidence to determine the full scope of the incident. The investigation remains ongoing, and LPD urges individuals who directly witnessed the incident or have first-hand information to come forward.”
LPD set up this site to submit video evidence from Saturday’s rally: https://lafayettepdin.evidence.com/axon/community-request/public/2504050107
Video footage offered to Based in Lafayette from witnesses showed Jordan – 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 argued 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 demonstrators, Marks, wearing a hoodie, can be seen head-butting Jordan in the face.
Video then shows Jordan 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.
Marks said Sunday that he believed Jordan was looking for him, as he tried to fade back into the crowd to avoid further confrontation.
“This guy's enraged, he's out of control, pointing that gun, inciting violence on purpose,” Leslie Glossic, Marks’ fiancé, said. “How is that not intimidation with a deadly weapon? How is that not disturbing the peace? … My 2-year-old daughter was in that crowd. I was absolutely terrified.”
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Additional video footage shared with Based in Lafayette shows Jordan, carrying the gun, engage further with the crowd.
“He’s going to jail, point blank,” Jordan said to several volunteer event safety marshals along Third Street. “You guys are blocking the traffic. I try to circle my block and you fucking … He fought me.”
(Video via Paul Haynes)
As the crowd chanted about fascists, Jordan seemed agitated, shifting the gun from his left hand to his right hand as he moved deeper into the crowd along Columbia Street, while event marshals in safety vests try to hold him back.
“He’s got a gun! Stop!” one person in the crowd yells, as Jordan pulls his arm away and keeps pushing into the crowd on the sidewalk.
Based on video footage, Jordan appeared to walk about two car lengths toward the courthouse entrance before someone in the crowd leads him back out to the street, where his truck sat blocking traffic. As he walked to the driver’s side of his truck, he turned back several times to continue to argue. He eventually put the gun back in the truck, but came back to the tailgate to plead his case, as his wife appeared to be guiding him back to the driver’s seat.
As he returned again, Jordan tried to swipe the phone from one demonstrator’s hand, as his wife and demonstrators again try to pull him back.
As Lafayette police handcuffed him outside his truck, some demonstrators cheered while others chanted, “Lock him up” – a reference to chants heard during Trump rallies in reference to Hillary Clinton and others.
(Video via Paul Haynes)
Jordan’s wife, Jessica, offered her take on what happened in a TikTok video posted after the confrontation. She was riding in the passenger seat when James Jordan got out of the truck Saturday afternoon.
After Saturday’s rally, screenshots of social media posts earlier in the week gave the time, date and place for Saturday’s rally, with Jessica adding a note: “Hey Lafayette Indiana conservatives … it’s our time to shine.” Those posts were either removed or made private by late afternoon Saturday.
She and James Jordan did not respond immediately to comment for this edition.
In her TikTok, Jessica Jordan said they were doing weekend errands “and we had made ourselves downtown in the town that we live in.”
“They were protesting Elon Musk,” she said into the camera. “So, we seen the protesters, and being Republican, we thought it would be funny to put on Trump-loving music.”
She said they rolled down the windows and turned up “Red Kingdom,” a Tech N9ne track appropriated by Trump rallies. She said that when they tried to turn right onto Third Street, at the southwest corner of the courthouse. She contended that they had to wait several cycles of the traffic light because demonstrators were using the crosswalk as they marched to the rally. (Witnesses have told BiL that the confrontation did not take several cycles of the traffic lights.)
“We’re like, hey, you gotta go,” Jessica Jordan said in the TikTok video. “You can protest, but you can't impede traffic. So he gets out of the truck, and he goes to the middle of our truck, I would say, and he starts yelling at them that they have to move. So then they kind of, like, step closer to him. So then he steps up, and … they get in a screaming match. They were screaming, I will admit that. I started screaming too, because, you know, I was pissed, the same as everybody else was at this situation.”
She described what happened next as James Jordan getting “kind of bum rushed” and eventually head-butted.
In the video, James Jordan described his gun as a Ruger pistol that resembles an AR-style rifle “that I only carry when there’s times of unrest. It’s not a daily thing.”
Jessica said the couple had gone to Chicago a day earlier that they “had to make sure that we were protected, because times are fucking weird right now.”
“So, it was in our truck,” she said. “He did go around, and he did grab that. He did not put his finger on the trigger. He did not point it at nobody. He did not pew-pew anybody. He didn’t hit anybody with it. None of that happened. He stayed 100% within his rights, constantly. So, yes, he did pull it, but after he was assaulted.”
In the TikTok, she said she drove the truck two blocks away, where James Jordan was released to her by police shortly afterward.
“They said that the reason that they had to take him away from this situation is that way the protesters didn’t riot,” Jessica said in the TikTok account. “It's weird how the party of love and compassion not only assaulted somebody, spun a narrative about why somebody pulled a pew-pew out, and then the cops are worried about them rioting whenever somebody gets released for, you know, standing their ground and holding their Second Amendment. But the news stations loved to spin their narratives. These news stations already had it posted that he's this big, bad person that showed up with a gun and were these big, bad MAGA protesters. And that's simply not what happened, and the cameras showed that, which is why he is not in jail, and he never went to jail.”
Organizers and police did not report other incidents at the demonstration Saturday afternoon, beyond some chalked messages written near the courthouse, which organizers cleaned off before the rally was over.
At the scene Saturday, Lt. Shana Wainscott, of the Lafayette Police Department, said Jordan was handcuffed and taken a block from the courthouse square as police investigated. Wainscott said that, based on security footage from city cameras downtown, Jordan 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.
An LPD account later Saturday backed that account, saying that police, investigating reports that Jordan had pointed the gun at people, “determined that the driver did not point the firearm at anyone.”
“He did not discharge the weapon and promptly returned it to his truck,” the LPD release reported.
Following review of bystander videos, questions remained about how Jordan walked through the crowd with the gun and about whether that was still considered an act of self-defense.
But on Sunday, LPD’s release said: “Indiana law allows the open carry of firearms in public spaces. However, the Lafayette Police Department remains committed to ensuring the safety of all residents while supporting the constitutional rights of free speech and peaceful assembly. The department acknowledges the concerns raised by the community and is dedicated to transparency, public safety, and accountability in its ongoing review of this incident.”
By late Saturday, a GoFundMe account had raised more than $6,800 for Marks’ legal defense.
“I feel like I was wrongly arrested,” Marks said. “It’s all stupid. … I was defending a lady from this guy.”
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It seems like the angry man and his wife came to the protest to cause trouble, since he came with an extra tee shirt and she had a megaphone. That is asking for problems.
MAGAss gets a head butt, and goes around his truck to get his loaded gun out of the back seat to try to FIND the guy who head-butted him, and that is "self defense?" What hogwash.