5 people charged in May protest
Prosecutors initially announced charges against 10 people
Of the 10 adults arrested in May after a Black Lives Matter protest in Hobart, only five ended up in court.
The protest was held May 31 in light of the May 26 killing of George Floyd, 46, in Minneapolis after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, 44, kneeled on Floyd’s neck. Floyd’s death unleashed nationwide demonstrations and protests over police brutality.
Two days after the Hobart protest outside of Southlake Mall, the Lake County Sheriff ’s Office announced that 10 adults and four minors were arrested after a clash with police that resulted in the use of tear gas and K9 officers.
The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office said Tuesday that only five people were formally charged with disorderly conduct: Michael Wade, 25, of Gary; Rory Turner, 28, of Merrillville; Enrique Navarro, 29, of East Chicago; Jovon Hardaway, 27, of Gary, and Caleb Thomas, 30, of Lake Station.
Spokesman Bradley Carter said in an email that Thomas, Wade and Turner are on a Pretrial Diversion Program, which means the charges against them will be dropped after a set period of time as long as they don’t get charged with another crime. All charges are misdemeanors and the five cases are considered pending, he said.
There are a few reasons why the other individuals were not charged, Carter said.
“This could mean that officers have used their discretion in determining that they will not charge those individuals, they are still investigating the individuals, or our office turned the cases down for a lack of probable cause,” Carter said in the email.
Fo r t he f i ve individuals charged, the probable cause affidavits written by the arresting police officers show a similar theme: The officers were responding to “rioters” in various
parking lots around Southlake Mall and that the individual charged began to yell back to police and refused to leave, after being told multiple times to clear the area, which resulted in their arrest.
Three of those charged were pepper sprayed, according to the reports.
The police officer who arrested Thomas, Jared Cockrell, wrote in his report that he responded to Southlake Mall and surrounding areas “to assist in riot control.”
Cockrell said in his report he first talked with Thomas and an unknown woman and told them both to leave. Cockrell wrote the two became “hostile in nature and stated that their vehicle was south of U.S. 30.”
Crockrell wrote that he came into contact with Thomas again, near the Outback Steakhouse parking lot, and told Thomas to leave the area or he would be arrested. After Thomas refused to leave, Crockrell used pepper spray and arrested him, according to the report.
But, Thomas was on Facebook Live for 7 minutes and 30 seconds until his arrest, which conflicts with the police report. Until his arrest, Thomas spoke calmly the one time an officer interacted with him on video and the camera did not capture an officer interacting with him and a woman.
The video starts showing the gas station at U.S. 30 and Mississippi Street, where dozens of police cars can be seen parked on U.S. 30 to stop traffic and helicopters can be seen and heard overhead. Then, at the gas station, three rows of police officers — with body shields and helmets — start marching in unison as an officer yells out commands, the video shows.
Thomas and the officers cross the street and once on the other side of the street — away from the gas station — Thomas captures a heated exchange between officers and someone near a parked car in the video. Someone is heard yelling “lock him up.”
Four officers with police dogs start walking toward Thomas and other protesters and the video begins to back away. An officer with a police dog asks Thomas where his car is and Thomas responds calmly that he walked.
Thomas continues walking and stops in the grass of the Outback Steakhouse parking lot to record the scene. He stands in the grass for about 30 seconds, when off camera an officer is heard saying “You gotta leave. Get in your vehicle.” When the camera turns toward the voice, two sprays of pepper spray are seen.
When Thomas realized what happened, he yells out an expletive and questions why he was peppersprayed. The officer then sprayed him again, the video showed. Thomas then fell to the ground and — with notable panic in his voice — tells the officer to stop.
“Please no. Please no. Please no. Come on, man. I was walking. I didn’t even do anything to you, man. Come one, man. I didn’t even do anything,” Thomas said, as the camera turns toward his face and shows the officer on top of him and his eyes squinting.
The officer — who isn’t the K9 unit officer who talked to Thomas earlier in the video — pulls the phone out of Thomas’ hand and the video ends.
In an interview with the Post-Tribune, Thomas, who is biracial, said his mother, who is Black, was watching the Facebook Live video.
“With everything that’s going on, the last thing she sees is her son getting peppered sprayed in the face and slammed to the ground by the cop. The video goes off, and no one hears from me. So they rallied the troops and … got me out within a couple of hours,” Thomas said.
Thomas said he shouldn’ t have been charged. His lawyer helped him arrange a pretrial diversion.
After Floyd’s death, Thomas said he wanted to attend a protest to stand up for an end to police brutality after talking with his 72year-old grandmother, who he said marched with Martin Luther King Jr. “about the same things that people were marching for” over the summer. As a father, Thomas said he wants to stand for change so his sons don’t have to attend similar marches when they are older.
Thomas said he was shocked by the police response.
“I served in the U.S. Army, so I know what militarized police looks like, and that was the definition. They were in ranks. They were calling out cadences,” Thomas said.
Even after being pepper sprayed and charged with disorderly conduct, Thomas said he attended another protest about a week later.
“I was right back out there, because I just felt it was something important,” Thomas said. “What happened to me shows a need for real change.”
Marvin Ishii, 24, of Crown Point, was one of the people initially announced as charged with disorderly conduct, but was never formally charged, he said.
Ishii was captured by a Post-Tribune photographer being taken to the ground by a Lake County Sheriff police dog. Since he was injured during his arrest, Ishii said he hasn’t attended another protest since.
“When you can’t walk, you don’t want to go out to a protest where you’re going to get shot up again, or hurt even worse, potentially,” Ishii said.
Ishii said it is wrong to charge people following a protest.
“It’s not right to charge people for simply speaking their mind. Especially if you’re not charging all 10 with charges, that’s unfair to the other five that are getting charged,” Ishii said.