Sheriff: Rioters Took a Toll on Deputies; Promises More Crowd Control Training

June 24, 2020, 1:10 p.m. ·

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The Lancaster County Sheriff tells NET News some of his deputies considered leaving law enforcement after facing three nights of civil unrest late last month. None have resigned, but he's adding more training on crowd control.

The comments came in an interview with Sheriff Terry Wager, focusing on what the department learned during the disturbances.

The Sheriff maintains responsibility for security at the Lincoln-Lancaster Hall of Justice. When protesters used the building as a symbolic focal point for their anger over racial inequality, Wagner was in the thick of the decision making over how to respond to protesters, the riots that followed, and the public response.


Lancaster Sheriff Captain Josh Clark listens as a protester shares concerns about police brutality.

Deputies guard courthouse perimeter prior to the curfew deadline.

Officers equipped for crowd control arrests wait inside courthouse.

Officer with tear gas launcher. (Photos: Bill Kelly/NET News)

In the days that followed, supervisors interviewed every deputy involved in the melee. Each could say their piece and reflect on how the command staff handled the response.

(Sheriff Terry Wagner) We had some questions about the tactics that, you know, to try to disperse the crowds and those kinds of things. And so we learned a lot from each other. And, you know, a lot of good suggestions came out of it.

(Bill Kelly, NET News) The interviews you did with personnel. What most surprised you what you heard from the officers who were I in the front of the building that night.

(Wagner) Well, they were a little frustrated. I'll go back to Saturday night. They were a little discouraged that the constant verbal barrage they took with the protesters right in their faces. How long we're going to let that go on? While these protests may have been peaceful, for the most part initially on. They were never legal. They never had the permitting that's required by city ordinance. So how long we're going to, you know, keep our employees out there, and then we started receiving projectiles. Water bottles and fireworks. Bottles filled with gasoline and with human excrement.

So that's when the decision was made to move the crowd away from this building. And the other thing that was really, really difficult for our employees was to watch the rioters by that point, committing crimes and not taking action to arrest them.

Wagner says his first goal was always the safety of his deputies and the officers supplying back-up from Lincoln Police and the Nebraska State Patrol. On the second night, he says there were especially nervous moments when demonstrators observed by helicopter and drone, could be seen attempting to surround some teams of officers on the ground.

(Kelly) Is there something that you'll Is there something you'll review procedurally or administratively to address the concerns that those folks had then?

(Wagner) Well, you know, every night, we learned something, and we adjusted our tactics to the next day. Saturday night, I know everybody thinks or is on the impression that if we had made arrests earlier, we may have avoided some of the millions of dollars of damage on the Lincoln Mall. Having said that, that was one of the decisions on Sunday night is that we were going to try to disperse the crowds after the curfew took effect. And if they wouldn't, just First start making arrests sooner than later to try to avoid the problems we had the night before.

(Kelly) In retrospect, do you think you should have made arrests earlier?

(Wagner) Absolutely. I think it would have, you know, solved a lot of problems. And I think the other thing that we, we talked about a lot was, we needed to do a better job of identifying the non-protesters in the group that were agitators. And, you know, on some of the footage, you could see people infiltrating who were not really protesting. They were just criminals waiting for an opportunity to commit those crimes. And that's what they did.

(Kelly) Describe what you saw that made it obvious to you that there were some of those elements involved.

(Wagner) Those folks come in, and they've got protective gear on because they realize that they're probably we're going to do battle, basically.

(Kelly) Once that group begins to move, there was a full 40-minutes worth of warning ahead of time. Once the group begins to move, is there any effort to deal with arrests rather than a push?

(Wagner) Nobody's naive enough to think of several officers walk up to people and saying, 'you're in violation of the protest of the curfew. You need to go over to that vehicle so you can be transported to jail.' Well, anybody in the right mind knows that's not going to happen. When the decision was made, we're going to start arresting curfew violators. It has to be done quickly and decisively to prevent injury to either the protester or the officers involved. We want to get people restrained as quickly as possible so they can't fight back and escalate the situation





Demonstrators at the May 31 protest at the courthouse. (Photos: Bill Kelly/NET News)

(Kelly) There's reviewing this specific instance, and then there's applying it to training and policy and procedure later. Are there things that occurred that you think will end up changing training and, and tactics and individual skills?

(Wagner) We've already talked about that. A large number of our deputies have never been trained in crowd control such as that. And so we're going to make sure everybody gets at least a basic orientation in crowd control tactics.

(Kelly) Did that put some of them at an individual disadvantage on those nights?

(Wagner) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they were, they were in a position maybe up around this building on the veranda. But their charge was to keep the crowd at bay, and they maybe didn't have the equipment or the or the training necessary to do that, you know, one on one, no problem on 10 or 15 people that would have been an issue.

(Kelly) Has this had? Has this taken a toll on some of your officers?

(Wagner) Oh, without a doubt, I mean, it. There were several of our employees who are combat veterans of Afghanistan in Iraq. That said, this was as bad as it was there on Saturday night when, you know, they're down the street a way. People are throwing objects at them. They describe it as a war zone and as bad as seen in combat. And constant vitriol that's being spewed into law enforcement officers. At times it is unnerving. And I think it's gotten some folks rethinking their career choices.

(Kelly) Have you had any resignations yet?

(Wagner) No, we have not.

(Kelly) So is there anything that you feel like constituted use of excessive force by your folks in retrospect

(Wagner) No, not that I have seen in the review that we did.

(Kelly) After the 31st, the mood changed a lot in front of the courthouse. What changed?

(Wagner) Well, I think, I think law enforcement decisive action on Sunday night, let the protesters know that we weren't going to tolerate lawlessness amongst them. While we protect their right to protest, we're not going to accept any lawlessness. I think they realized that. So I think that was really, really helpful in keeping Monday night's protests, much quieter. We made a conscious decision to put up a barrier around the front of our building. People didn't cross it. We kept our reactionary forces inside out of their sight so that they didn't really have anybody to scream and yell at. In hindsight, that may be a good thing to do in certain circumstances. That worked out pretty well too.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner. He's not the only agency reviewing tactics and procedures. Police agencies in Omaha and Lincoln are in the process of reviewing crowd control and lethal force policies.