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IMPD arrests 14 as protesters block street in downtown Indianapolis

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Fourteen people were arrested during a protest, part of a national movement, that shut down a street outside the Indiana Statehouse for nearly three hours Monday. 

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival bills itself as a national call for moral revival. The group had scheduled protests at state capitols, many across much of the eastern United States, on Monday afternoon, according to their website

“No justice, no peace” were among the chants that came from what police estimated were 50 protesters. 

The protesters who said they were conducting civil disobedience began lining up along a crosswalk on North Capitol Street south of West Ohio Street around 3 p.m. The road reopened by 5:50 p.m.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said in a news release issued after the protest, “The group of protesters ignored these commands and refused to stop obstructing traffic. IMPD Supervisors on scene attempted to speak with protesters individually asking them to move out of the street and they refused. After being left with no alternative five females and nine males were arrested for Obstruction of Traffic.”

The Poor People’s Campaign protesters said they wanted to highlight the way veterans, children, women, teachers and others are being treated. They wanted the Indiana Legislature, which was meeting in a one-day special session, to make more changes to help those people.

“Our goal is to change the national conversation to no longer let politicians divide us on issues that shouldn’t be dividing us,” one protester who said she was from the Michiana area told 24-Hour News 8’s Brenna Donnelly on Facebook Live.

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is a renewed version of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign five decades ago to lift Americans out of poverty. Protest and events were planned in at least 30 states and the nation’s capital on Monday.