Protest against police brutality in Rome

After several fights broke out in Rome on Thursday, police officers tried to get a crowd of 200 under control.

Friday, people gathered for a rally in Rome protesting what they call excessive force used during the incident.

Of a juvenile with a gun, which turned out to be false.

But what police say they did find, was a large, unauthorized football game - that disintegrated into more of a boxing match.

We have video to show you!

Newschannel 2's joleen ferris is live at guyer field with the very latest on this.

Joleen?

The group citizen action ny is holding a rally ere, at ft stanwix.

There will be some speake4s, then they plan to walk up the street to the rome police station.

They are protesting what they call police brutality, stemming from rome police breaking up several fights at guyer field last night, during what city officials are calling an unauthorized football game that violated covid crowd restrictions and social distancing guidelines.

Video posted on social media show rome police attempting to break up the fights & restrain some of the minors who might have been involved.

Was it police brutality or police performing a necessary but unpleasant looking task?

One speaker at tonight's rally doesn't want to speculate about events she didn't personally witness.

But her goal in these situations is always the same.

I think as long as the rome police department lookg out for everyone in their community regardless of ethnicity skin color gender orientation anything like that.

That's my goal just to make sure rome police is looking out for the entire community and not just the ones that look like them rome police chf, kevibeach, safrom w: officers were put into a very dangerous situation with a large group of people acting violently toward them and each other and i think they handled themselves very well, while getting cursed at and threatened with bodily harm and spit at" however, beach did say any time there are concerns or accusations of police misconduct, supervisors do look into it and they are, in this case.

Fire investigators are looking into what caused this home to burn