Wauwatosa Incident Summary

Press release from the City of Wauwatosa:

October 11, 2020

At approximately 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 10, a group of about thirty people congregated in Washington Park and a group of about 50 people gathered outside of Wauwatosa City Hall. The Washington Park group walked northwest towards Wauwatosa and the group at City Hall grew to about 100 people, mostly gathered on the north lawn. The Washington Park group entered the City of Wauwatosa from 60th Street and Garfield Avenue.

At 7:00 pm, the curfew went into effect. Some members of the group dispersed reducing the crowd size to approximately 50 people and 20 cars. At 7:02, the Wauwatosa Police Department shut down the intersection of North Avenue and Wauwatosa Avenue to create a safe area for gathering pedestrians to stand. At 7:08, ten of the twenty cars in the area blocked the intersection at Wauwatosa Avenue and North Avenue. Due to the growing crowd, law enforcement personnel requested that the Wisconsin National Guard deploy to the area of City Hall to assist with crowd control if needed.

At 7:17, law enforcement personnel stopped one vehicle with a stop stick that was driving recklessly at 73rd Street and North Avenue. After a brief foot pursuit, law enforcement personnel took the suspect into custody.

At 7:30, law enforcement personnel declared an unlawful assembly and began making announcements to the crowd. Following the announcements, some members of the group departed. Since some members of the crowd were leaving peacefully, we reduced the number of law enforcement personnel and Wisconsin National Guard as well.

At 8:00 pm, an hour after the start of curfew, and after thirty minutes of unlawful assembly announcements, law enforcement personnel began to slowly advance towards the remaining crowd to encourage them to leave. Most of the remaining protesters began to depart eastbound on North Avenue. Most of the protestors remained on the sidewalk and peacefully exited the City of Wauwatosa. A handful of protestors that disobeyed the lawful orders were arrested. In total, there were eight arrests on October 10.

We thank the crowd for largely complying with the lawful orders to disperse and continue to ask that all citizens comply with the emergency order in place by remaining away from City of Wauwatosa public spaces during the hours of 7:00 pm and 6:00 am to ensure the safety of all members of our community. The emergency order expires on Monday, October 12 at 6:00 am.

This press release was produced by the City of Wauwatosa. The views expressed here are the author’s own.