By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News
A Pontiac Police officer made his way to Decatur Monday to assist with crowd control during a scheduled protest.
Decatur was the site of the most recent widely publicized officer-related shooting in a week of several similar nationwide incidents and Pontiac Police Detective Markus Armstrong went as one of nearly 30 officers as part of the Mobile Field Force with Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System. Armstrong said the entire thing went fairly smoothly, but there is always a little bit of anxiety before taking part in something of this nature.
“We couldn’t see anything because we were staged out of sight, just because, I think if we overwhelmed them (the protesters), it was just going to cause more problems, which we’ve seen in the past. A lot of the guys I was with were listening to the live stream on Facebook and it was pretty neat to listen to,” Armstrong said.
This protest was originally planned as a reaction to the other recent shootings, but was rescheduled to happen Monday in light of the shooting that happened in Decatur.
