PITTBURGH — Pittsburgh police deployed pepper spray on a group of protesters on Tuesday afternoon.
A Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson says the incident happened as the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit was wrapping up in the city’s Oakland neighborhood.
The protesters were reportedly blocking the street and confronting summit attendees, so police ordered them to disperse.
The spokesperson says some demonstrators “were actively resisting the dispersal orders” and pushing officers, jabbing toward them with their signs and pulling an officer into the crowd.
That’s when two officers deployed “quick bursts” of pepper spray, trying to “stop the assault.”
The spokesperson says there was never an order for large-scale crowd control agents to be used. There were no other issues reported at protests throughout the day.
Police don’t anticipate making any arrests from this incident.
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