At least 6 arrests after confrontation outside police union hall in West Omaha

The Revolutionary Action Party hosted a “pig roast” at Montclair Park near 135th and Center Street.

The Revolutionary Action Party hosted a “pig roast” at Montclair Park near 135th and Center Street.

BY Mel Buer

At least 6 members of the Revolutionary Action Party, an activist group that hopes to “empower and instill a revolutionary consciousness” in Omaha communities, were arrested by Omaha police on the evening of May 22 following a rally and cookout that ended in a confrontation with police and a display of severed pig heads outside of the Omaha Police Officers Association Hall.

The rally, a “Pig Roast,” was hosted at Montclair Park near 135th and Center Streets and featured speeches from local organizers who were incensed at the OPOA’s choice to mail out divisive campaign mailers targeting former District 3 City Council Candidate Cammy Watkins. The mailers featured images which were called out for propagating racial tropes in order to paint Ms. Watkins, a Black woman, as “jeopardizing Omaha’s future” as the mailer proclaimed. Each speaker at the rally expressed disappointment in the Nebraska Democratic Party’s (NDP) failure to adequately address the mailers.

Local community organizer Anthony Rogers-Wright called upon the NDP to address their failure publicly. “We want the Democrats to call out that racism publicly, not in closed-door meetings that they claim to have,” he said in his speech. He also stated that RAP demands the release of a statement from the NDP saying that “no Democratic candidate or lawmaker moving forward should take money or endorsements from the Omaha Police Association.”

RAP Organizer Kiara Williams highlighted the ways in which Black women are treated in America. “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman....Black women have always been victimized by this country, its systems, and the people within them,” she said. “We are let down as Black women every day of our existence.”

“The daily atrocities that Black women face are astronomically horrendous, and we have had enough,” RAP organizer Jaden Perkins said. Perkins, who volunteered with Cammy Watkins’s city council campaign, described her as an “honorable woman, a leader in promoting inclusivity, climate justice, racial justice, and police accountability.” 

Perkins called the mailers sent out by the Omaha Police Officers Association “extraordinarily racist” and condemned OPOA President Anthony Conner’s previous social media comments about the community of North Omaha and the protestors who took to the streets last year. “Protect and serve, my ass,” he said.

After the speeches, the crowd assembled and marched a block and a half away to the Omaha Police Officers Association Hall, where they were met by officers in 5 police cruisers who blocked their movement further into the association’s parking lot. The organizers were carrying three pig heads with costume police uniform hats on them, intending to leave them on the sidewalk outside the OPOA building’s front doors. When officers impeded further movement toward the door, they repeatedly told protestors that they were trespassing on private property and asked them to disperse.


RAP Organizer Bear Alexander gave a speech to the crowd assembled at the police line. He said that the OPOA’s main objective was “division within our community.” He spoke of the police violence terrorizing the community and how he believes that creates division among its residents. “For decades, and for centuries, they have been for [sic] pushing and perpetuating hateful rhetoric, racial rhetoric, and everything in between,” he said. Speaking to the officers directly, he spoke on the effect that the Omaha Police had on the community. “You have created a state of numbness, of novocaine in our community because we have been surviving against you guys,” he said. 


The standoff lasted roughly 20 minutes as more officers arrived at the parking lot. Eventually, an unlawful assembly was declared and protestors were ordered to disperse. After a few tense moments, officers charged at the crowd with night sticks and batons and chased them back toward the park where they began their march. 

As protestors made their way back to the community center park, officers seemed to target and arrest multiple organizers. A NOISE reporter reached out to Officer Joe Nickerson for comment about the arrests. “Officers again moved the crowd and identified instigators who were subsequently arrested at Montclair Park,” he said in an email. “The charges were Trespassing, Fail to Disperse, Disorderly Conduct, Obstructing, Littering, and Unlawful Assembly.”

Cole Christensen, who was among those arrested, believes that officers intentionally targeted Bear Alexander and others for arrest, rather than issue citations. “OPD chose to instead pursue the “instigators” after we had removed ourselves from the hall’s property,” he said in a DM. “They had no provocation at that point for those arrests beyond targeting & [sic] intimidation.” 

The presence of chemical weapons dispersal systems (pepperballs, mace, and tear gas) was conspicuously absent during the course of the confrontation with Omaha police officers outside OPOA. It appeared that most officers held nightsticks and batons as they charged at protestors. No pepper balls or other chemical agents were deployed.


This comes after the city entered into a consent decree with protestors following the mass arrest of 125 protestors on the Farnam Street bridge last year. Part of the consent decree restricted OPD’s use of chemical weapons as a means to disperse crowds. The city’s defense attorney Michele Peters argued at the time that the restrictions on the use of chemical weapons would necessarily mean that officers would be forced to use batons and tasers to get crowds to disperse. “It fully ties the hands of police officers in rapidly changing circumstances as to what the reasonable response is,” Peters said at the time. “Things that start well-intentioned can turn very quickly.”


NOISE reached out to the ACLU of Nebraska for comment and is awaiting a response.

(Editor’s note: Mel Buer was a plaintiff in that ACLU lawsuit against the city last year).

OPOA President Anthony Conner weighed in on Twitter after the arrests. “Pay attention to those that are denouncing this act and those that are silent,” he said in a tweet that included photos of the pig heads on the concrete. “I want to thank the on-duty police officers that responded and protected the OPOA hall tonight. I know you are hero’s [sic] and I am proud to be your voice I’m [sic] this crazy world.”


Despite the display of severed pig heads, Alexander maintains that their event was peaceful and didn’t warrant the extreme reaction from police officers. “Our demonstration was almost done and once again just like July 25th, they forcibly shut it down,” he said via text. “We will not stop fighting white supremacy until it’s eradicated and we are liberated.” At least six arrests were made during the event, most for trespassing and unlawful assembly.









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