Northern Indiana man convicted of driving through protesting crowd

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A northern Indiana physician has been convicted of criminal recklessness for driving through a crowd of people on a bridge in 2020 as they were protesting racial injustice.

A St. Joseph County jury deliberated for about three hours Thursday before finding Glenn Wheet guilty of the felony charge, the South Bend Tribune reported.

Prosecutors argued Wheet caused a substantial risk of injury by knowingly driving over traffic cones set up by police and into the crowd at slow speed on July 4, 2020, in Mishawaka during a protest that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Prosecutors said Wheet initially drove his SUV away from the bridge, but then returned.

Multiple videos of the incident that were played in court show protesters shouting and rushing toward Wheet's SUV, which drives over a traffic cone and into the crowd.

Some demonstrators begin hitting the vehicle as others stand in front of it or push against it. As the SUV clears through the crowd, it accelerates, dragging a man who testified he was hanging onto its side mirror.

Wheet testified that he was "under attack" by protesters who "swarmed" his car.

He and his attorney did not speak to reporters after the verdict.

Wheet, who is a family physician in Mishawaka, could face jail time when he is sentenced April 13. But Indiana law allows certain low-level felony convictions to be treated as misdemeanors.