Twelve protesters have been arrested and charged with rioting in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests over the officer-involved shooting of a local man, who was causing a scene at his mother’s home. Ricardo Munoz, a 27-year-old, could was seen on bodycam footage charging the officer with a knife.
According to family members, Munoz suffered from mental illness and was not on his medication at the time of the altercation. He was out on bail and awaiting and October trial for knife attacks on four people.
Responding to the shooting, the riotous mob marched from the scene of the shooting on Laurel Street to the police station, wreaking havoc on the community en route. Local law enforcement officials witnessed the rioters throwing glass bottles, bricks, gallon jugs of unidentified fluid, rocks and traffic barricades. At least one county vehicle, parked outside the police station was damaged in the mayhem.
Lancaster police arrested 12 rioters and a minor around 3 a.m. on Monday after violent clashes led to police deploying tear gas to disperse the crowd.
According to The New York Post, the twelve adults were identified as Jamal Shariff Newman, 24, Barry Jones, 30, Frank Gaston, 43, Yoshua Dwayne Montague, 23, Matthew Modderman, 31, Talia Gessner, 18, Kathryn Patterson, 20, Taylor Enterline, 20, T-Jay Fry, 28, Dylan Davis, 28, Alexa Wise, 29, and Jessica Marie Lopez, 32. They were arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges that include arson, rioting, institutional vandalism and criminal conspiracy.
A 16-year-old male was also held on charges of rioting, disorderly conduct, possession of instruments of crime and marijuana, propulsion of missiles onto a roadway and vandalism.
A Pennsylvania judge has set bail for each defendant at $1 million for nine of the defendants, none of whom were able to post bail and are currently being held in the Lancaster County Prison.
About 150 protesters were out again Monday night to protest and call for justice for Munoz’s death. The demonstrations remained peaceful.
“We want an answer,”
Kassandra Orjales told PennLive.
“The name of the officer should be known. If it was one of us, we’d be all over the news. We won’t be silent anymore.”