Special prosecutor: 90 more days for decision on gun incident at ‘Hands Off’ rally in April

Timetable set after judge asks for update on investigation into a confrontation outside Tippecanoe County Courthouse in April 2025. Next progress report could come on one-year anniversary of incident

It could be more than a year after the incident to decide what, if any, criminal charges are warranted from an April 5 case 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 outside the Tippecanoe County Courthouse.

No charges were filed at the time against James Jordan, a 43-year-old Lafayette man who was briefly detained at the rally, or against a Lafayette man who head-butted him during a confrontation leading up to Jordan retrieving a gun from his truck left if traffic near the corner of Third and Columbia streets.

And no charges have been filed in the case since it was assigned Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter as a special prosecutor on April 22, 2025.

This week, Tippecanoe Circuit Judge Sean Persin asked Carter to file a progress report on the investigation compiled by the Lafayette Police Department.

Monday afternoon, Jovanni Miramontes, a deputy prosecutor in Carter’s office, wrote that the special prosecutor was in the process of reviewing “voluminous materials in order to properly investigate … for charging consideration.” Miramontes wrote that the Lake County prosecutor expected to finish within 90 days.

James Jordan, a Lafayette man, carries a rifle into an April 5, 2025, demonstration

On Tuesday, Persin noted the timeline in court records, telling the special prosecutor that he expected another progress report by April 6, 2026, “if the investigation is still ongoing at that time.”

After briefly detaining Jordan at the scene and releasing him, determining that it had been an act of self-defense – a move that drew the ire of those who were at the rally – Lafayette police kept the investigation open, collecting dozens of video submissions from demonstrators and others. LPD Chief Scott Galloway told BiL in August that that the case had been turned over to the special prosecutor earlier in the summer.

At the time, Jordan’s wife, Jessica, posted social media statements defending his actions as legal and provoked by an anti-Trump crowd – first by marchers using a crosswalk, blocking him from turning from Columbia Street onto Third Street, and then by a head-butt that bloodied his nose.