Angry crowd shows up at Mayor Peduto’s home challenging Pittsburgh police arrest of protester

Dressed in black and carrying signs like “Defund the Police, Peduto is a coward,” about 150 protesters marched to Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto’s home Sunday after rallying in Mellon Park in Point Breeze.

Protesters were outraged by a “low-visibility arrest” of a protester in Oakland on Saturday during a Black Lives Matter protest.

The arrest of 24-year-old Matthew Cartier came several hours into the protest in Oakland. Social media video shows police officers, not in uniform, emerge from an unmarked van and pull Cartier inside. Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Ed Trapp said that Cartier was blocking an intersection unnecessarily, stepping in front of cars and attempting to direct traffic during the protest.

Protesters on Sunday said that Cartier wasn’t merely arrested, but that he was abducted.

A press conference held by Peduto on the incident earlier in the afternoon apparently didn’t impress the protesters.

“This is about Pittsburgh not accepting that treatment — that is, saying ‘no’ to Pittsburgh with government vehicles abducting us off the streets,” said one of the speakers who declined to identify herself.

About 150 people assembled and listened to speakers at Mellon Park before walking several blocks to Peduto’s home, where they called for his resignation, then eventually dispersed.

Large protest moving toward Mayor Bill Peduto’s house near Hastings @TribLIVE pic.twitter.com/dGlH5fTYuY

— Shane Dunlap (@shanedunlap) August 16, 2020

Another protester, Shahid Foroughi of Wilkinsburg and a member of the group “Serve the People,” said he was rallying people Sunday near Peduto’s home because of Saturday’s “abduction” of a protester, which he called “facististic.”

Only a handful of people showed up for the Serve the People protest, which later merged with the Mellon Park protest.

Beth Schongar, of Pittsburgh’s North Side, said she has attended peaceful protests before. She showed up at Mellon Park on Sunday because she thought the Pittsburgh Police tactics of arresting the protester Saturday were “completely inappropriate.”