The Scene: Bloomington police respond to reported assault on Kirkwood as Saturday-night crowds pack downtown; Etc.

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By Jeremy Hogan

Bloomington, Ind. – March 1, 2026

In a typical Saturday night, on an atypical day, the Bloomington Police Department responded to an assault in the 400 block of East Kirkwood just before midnight. It was the kind of scene scanner traffic doesn’t really describe … the bars were absolutely slammed, there was a line of people around the block at Kilroy’s on Kirkwood, and vehicles were jamming the street, picking up delivered food and dropping off party people. Then there was some kind of fight. I’d just been down there before it happened, so I went back to check out the scene.

By then, the crowd had cleared off the sidewalk, but the Upstairs Pub was still packed. Police stood on the corner talking to witnesses, one officer directed traffic, and an ambulance partially blocked the street.

A security guard nearby said they didn’t see it, but given the response, it was probably a serious assault. It’s down in the same place where an unhoused man was assaulted several times last summer.

Some people in the pub yelled insults at people on the sidewalk, who yelled back, and then laughed. People were mostly having a good time. It was the first night of good weather since winter tornadoes damaged suburban homes and trashed a bank on the west side last weekend.

In that context, the President of the United States on Saturday killed the supreme leader of Iran Saturday morning. It started much like the Iraq War, when George W. Bush went on TV to tell Americans he had started, Shock and Awe, in Iraq.

The war that was supposed to be over in a matter of days went on for years.

I mention this because a video blogger sent The Bloomingtonian footage today of the Bloomington mayor at a pro-freedom rally on the courthouse square. It’s well known in certain parts of the community that the mayor’s husband, Babak Seradjeh, survived the Iranian Revolution and hasn’t been a fan of the Iranian regime, which is known for its brutality.

At the same time, the war is sure to divide the community, and it will only become more divisive the longer it drags on — and drags the United States into open conflict in the Middle East. While nobody should be a fan of people who kill people the way Iran has, there’s also a process, and politics are sure to become even more of a form of “living in interesting times.”

There are protests planned all over the United States in response, and one took place in Indianapolis today, but none are planned yet for Bloomington — at least according to the Answer Coalition list.

In the meantime, later Saturday a man drove the wrong way on the west side, and it became Facebook sensationalism. Later, around 10:30 I could hear what sounded like gunshots or fireworks — enough that at least one person a good distance from here called it in as gunfire — but police didn’t seem to immediately find anything.

On the scanner, in our K-shaped economy, some students were living it up. They clearly haven’t been reading Lawrence Ferlinghetti — or probably Jack Kerouac either. Chances are they wouldn’t understand the phrase “Forget it, Jake, this is Chinatown,” either. We’re betting they heard about the NFL combine today, though, and best of luck to Mendoza wherever he goes.

Speaking of coming and going, former Mayor John Fernandez said that 17,000 or more people who can’t find housing in the city commute here every day, and that the city has been losing population over the past few years.

It seems like both Facebook and scanner traffic without context obscured things, but here are some photos that at least give a clearer picture of Kirkwood after an assault on a Saturday night — before the rain, and before it returns over the next couple days. On a night, perhaps, like Paris between the great wars — before anybody had heard of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” William Burroughs’ “Junkie,” or before the atomic bomb.

Meanwhile, police arrested people in one instance after another, the scanner traffic offering blind reasons why. And around 2:15 a.m., someone broke their arm and an ambulance was called to Brothers.

Then at 2:45 a.m., another person was arrested after a disturbance outside the Bluebird.

The post The Scene: Bloomington police respond to reported assault on Kirkwood as Saturday-night crowds pack downtown; Etc. first appeared on The Bloomingtonian.