You may cross the bridge at 30th and Farnam often on your way to your job or looking at the city view. On July 25, 2020, however, the view was much different. That night, 125 protestors were arrested during the Black Lives Matter march.
“I never heard a single thing from a cop,” said protestor Audrey Holbeck. “I never heard the calls to disperse or literally anything.”
“The first words I heard from a cop all night [were] as we were crossing the bridge. We could see the cops on the other side, like [we were] literally about to go home. The first words I heard were to get on the ground, ‘you’re being arrested,'” she said. “I was not expecting it. I was so baffled at that moment. I looked behind me and saw cops zoom in from both sides in a blockade kind of thing.”
Following the mass arrests on Farnam Street, Omaha Police were sued by the ACLU for their handling of this incident. The event was a catalyst for change in police protocol. Many of these changes were put in place to decrease biased policing and are set to reduce the number of officer-involved shootings.
Mayor Jean Stothert acknowledged these protocols in a statement this summer.
“They have to have a picture, they have to tell exactly what that person did that violated the law, they have to be much more detailed reports now,” she said. “And I think that is the real positive thing that we have learned and are making policy changes with … “
For the Omaha protestors, the risk simply was outweighed by the reward.
