Hunter/Lang
10/9/19
A fourth arrest has been made in connection with a riot this summer on Iowa City’s Southeast side.
27-year-old Ronald Thompson of Sandusky Drive was booked into the Johnson County Jail Tuesday afternoon.
Video recordings posted on social media and surveillance video show the violent assembly started at 1102 Hollywood Boulevard the evening of July 21st , then spilled out into the street.
Thompson is seen running up to a subject, already being assaulted by several other people, and punching him in the face as he attempts to get up from the ground. Thompson is then seen running down the street toward another subject but stops to catch his breath as others involved assault the second person.
Thompson was identified as a suspect in the riot by witnesses who knew him by his nickname, “Petey.”
Thompson is familiar to police, who arrested him in October of 2017 on a parole violation when he was stopped as a passenger in a traffic stop. A search of the vehicle turned up a weapon that had been reported stolen. They also found two baggies of marijuana on Thompson’s person. He was charged then with Carrying Weapons, Trafficking in Stolen Weapons and 3rd or subsequent drug possession. He had been serving probation on one of the previous drug charges at the time, and had been arrested earlier in the month on another drug charge. He was given five years on the traffic stop charges, but the sentence was suspended.
Thompson joins 18-year-old Andre Smith Jr. of Hudson Avenue, 18 year old Quinton Hitchcock of Taylor Drive and 24 year-old Brandon Juniel of Taylor Drive with Participating in a Riot charges stemming from the incident. It’s an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by a prison sentence of up to two years.
Smith and Juniel have previous criminal histories. Smith faces sentencing on First Degree Burglary and Assault Causing Bodily Injury charges stemming from a Taylor Drive incident this past February on October 14th.
