Fort Worth police use tear gas, flashbangs on crowd of protesters on 7th Street bridge
Fort Worth police used tear gas, smoke and flash bombs to disperse protesters from the 7th Street bridge after a crowd had been in a standoff with officers there for about three hours Sunday night. Officers drove protesters back down West 7th Street and began making arrests around 10:30 p.m.
Protesters cleared the area.
Fifty protesters were arrested, according to Fort Worth and Tarrant County jail records.
Some protesters threw frozen water bottles and fireworks at officers during the face-off that began when marchers tried to walk from downtown to the West 7th District, police said. Three officers were injured, police said Monday.
Hundreds of protesters who marched through downtown Fort Worth beginning about 6:15 Sunday night started to move down West 7th Street about an hour later.
That’s when their standoff with police began on a bridge over the Trinity River.
Protesters locked arms as they approached a line of officers, some of whom were wearing riot gear and gas masks, blocking the other side of the bridge.
Police warned marchers that the protest had become an unlawful assembly and said they could be arrested if they didn’t leave the bridge.
The protesters got on their knees and chanted, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”
Organizers began telling the crowd to walk away because they didn’t want any arrests, while some yelled back in disagreement. About half the group turned back, but others remained. They were trying to walk from downtown to the West 7th entertainment and Cultural District, where many businesses and museums are located.
Police said in a press release that they blocked the group of about 300 protesters from crossing the bridge because “participants in this group were overheard making comments that they were going to ‘tear up W 7th,’ which indicated their intent to damage property.”
One man was detained by police shortly before 8:30 p.m. It was not immediately clear why he was arrested.
Jail records indicated protesters arrested faced a charge of riot participation. One of the first protesters arrested was booked into the Fort Worth Jail at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, and protesters continued to be booked into jail until 5:40 a.m. Monday, according to jail records.
The youngest protesters arrested were 17-years-old and one of the oldest was a 57-year-old white man who was booked into jail at 1:58 a.m. Monday.
By the time police dispersed the crowd, they had been on the bridge for about three hours, demonstrating as part of nationwide protests against police brutality.
“At approximately 10:15 p.m., protesters began throwing frozen water bottles at officers clearly intending to injure them,” police said in the press release. “Officers with the SWAT Unit deployed dispersal smoke and flash-bangs in an attempt to deter this violence and redirect the protesters away from the officers on the bridge.”
Several dozen protesters remained on the bridge and continued to throw bottles, police said.
“The remaining protesters began shooting pyrotechnics toward officers, which intensified the threat of injury to everyone present,” the Fort Worth Police Department statement said. “The SWAT Unit then deployed tear gas to disperse the crowd.”
The crowd broke apart, but officers later responded to calls of looting in the Montgomery Plaza/West 7th District area, police said. Windows were broken at a restaurant, Velvet Taco.
“Those who have been involved in the community protests over the past few days have done so peacefully, giving respect and dignity to those around them,” police said. “Unfortunately, the few who engaged in violent behavior this evening did so with little regard for the safety and welfare of those who wished to express their concerns in a peaceful manner. The Fort Worth Police Department will continue to work diligently to ensure the safety of everyone and we will partner with our community to create a safer environment for all.”
Earlier in the evening, Sam Schwartz and Sterling Gavinkski, both 24, said they came from Dallas to join the protest in Fort Worth. Hundreds of people in both cities have participated in protests over the past three days.
“There’s systematic oppression that’s rooted in our society and it’s been there as long as we’ve been alive,” Gavinkski said. “We’re here executing our free speech and standing up for what’s right.
“By the time we showed up in Dallas, everything was completely slowing down because they had militant groups on every corner,” he said. “We wanted to be involved in something.”
While protests in Fort Worth had been nonviolent at that point, Dallas instituted a 7 p.m. curfew in some parts of the city because some protesters there have looted businesses and damaged other property.
“It’s a much more scary vibe,” Schwartz said.
Maya Gunn, who joined Sunday’s march from the beginning, said police “were with us from the start, guiding us and walking with us. As soon as we get into the area of Fort Worth that really needs to hear our message, they stopped us and blocked us.”
“This is a very affluent area of Fort Worth,” she said. “A lot of rich, mainly white people live in this area. A lot of people who are affected by police brutality don’t look like them.”
Sarah Russell said she’s a teacher on the east side of Fort Worth.
“I have students of color, both black and Hispanic,” she said. “As a white woman, I’ve been quiet for too long. And I cannot love them as much as I do and not stand up for them.”
The protest had been “perfectly peaceful,” Russell said. “They literally stopped us for no reason.”
Krista Daniels, one of the protest organizers, drove up in a car and tried to get the crowd to leave the bridge, but they wouldn’t go.
“We feel like we are responsible for them,” she said, “but they are grown, and if they want to stay, the choice is theirs.”
Donnell Ballard, founder of United My Justice, the group that organized Sunday’s protest, said he told protesters that they would have to leave the bridge area after they were there for 30 minutes.
Half walked back toward downtown Fort Worth with him but the other half chose to stay.
Ballard said he went back to the bridge and spoke with those who stayed a second time and explained to them that police were getting ready to use tear gas and arrest people.
But they still refused to leave, Ballard said.
Ballard said he returned to the area a third time and there was chaos. Tear gas was flying and police were confronting people on the bridge, Ballard said.
“I was not expecting things to go on like this,” Ballard said.
Staff writer Mitch Mitchell contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 31, 2020 at 10:42 PM.
