Tipsheet

Reuters Tried to Claim the Louisville Riots Were Mostly Peaceful. They Were Not.

Julio Rosas
Julio Rosas  |  September 24, 2020 6:30 PM

Reuters claimed in its coverage of the Louisville riots on Wednesday that the demonstrations were "mostly peaceful" up until two Louisville Metro police officers were shot, but as I documented during the evening, it was far from "mostly peaceful."

To understand what lead up to the shooting, you have to go back to when the crowd had gathered at Jefferson Square Park. People gathered there after the grand jury's decision to charge only one officer with three counts of wanton endangerment. No officers were directly charged for the shooting of Breonna Taylor. 

The crowd was very upset. After sunset, people lit fires in the street and set the boards protecting the Hall of Justice's windows ablaze. At that point, Louisville police had declared the gathering an unlawful assembly. Officers came out of the Hall of Justice to extinguish the flames and were attacked by rioters throwing projectiles.

After being warned that crowd control munitions would be used if rioters did not leave the area, a large number of people left in a group and marched out of the barricaded zone. Some people in the group then started to set fires and damage property along the route, prompting cheers from the crowd.

This continued until the crowd started to march towards the line of Louisville officers. The police fired two flashbangs over the crowd. Right after the flashbangs exploded, that's when gunshots rang out and two officers were hit.

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Interim Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroeder told reporters outside the hospital a few hours later that both officers were in stable condition and a suspect was in custody.