Around 100 protesters demonstrated Tuesday outside the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce event that hosted Sen. Todd Young at the Monroe Convention Center.
The older cohort of protesters lined the 300 block of College Avenue from as early as 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. for the scheduled discussion. They held signs reading “Due Process is a RIGHT” and “Medicaid cuts hurt Hoosiers” among others, protesting potential cuts to social security, Medicaid, the Department of Government Efficiency and more of President Donald Trump’s recent initiatives. One protester held a sign reading “Honk for democracy” encouraging passing cars to sound their support.
Retired minister and political activist Bill Breeden, who unsuccessfully ran for the Indiana House of Representatives in 2016, brought a large green facial sculpture on a pole with a sign under it reading “Resist Fascism Embrace Democracy.” He said he and his wife set up his retirement in a way that they rely solely on social security.
Retired minister and political activist Bill Breeden talks to someone in front of the Monroe Convention Center where Sen. Todd Young was speaking on April 15, 2025, in Bloomington. Breeden made the sculpture himself and carried it throughout the protest.
“If they cut that, yeah, this is an attack on everything, you know, the United States should be about,” Breeden said.
“I’m worried about everything,” former IU Writing Tutorial Services employee Jo Ann Vogt said. “Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, I mean, air, clean water, decent food to eat.”.
“All things that older people depend on,” Bloomington resident George Dresher, who joined Vogt at the protest, added.
Throughout the protest, chants included, “Don’t be a chump, stand up to Trump” and “Hey hey, ho, ho, Musk and Trump have got to go.”
Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson acknowledged the protesters at 11:20 a.m. and was handed an American flag, before eventually heading into the event with the flag in hand at 11:29 a.m.
“My hope is that he appreciates the complexity of the cuts that he’s endorsing, that it’s affecting real people and these are not ideological programs,” Thomson said. “So, while it’s good fiscal policy to attempt to balance a budget, the history of the math is definitively that the deficit has also increased under republican leadership. So, we need to ensure that we have basic needs met for the residents of our country.”
Groups of protesters moved to the back parking lot of the convention center multiple times throughout the protest. At around 11:47 a.m., three members of the event’s security from Marshall Security LLC told a group of over 20 protesters that they were on private property and had to leave while threatening to call the police.
“MSI Security has no authority,” the protesters chanted to the three members of the company.
A protester talks to two Bloomington police officers in the parking lot behind the Monroe Convention Center on April 15, 2025, in Bloomington. The protesters, who were there for Sen. Todd Young’s discussion, were told they were trespassing and had to move to either the B-Line trail or the front of the center.
Two unmarked Bloomington Police Department cars eventually arrived around 12:10 p.m., with two officers telling the protesters that the Chamber of Commerce had leased out the lot for the event, making it private property, and telling protesters that they would be arrested for a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
Protesters pulled geographic information systems maps up on their phones when initially discussing the legality with the police, pointing to the lot as city property. The group chanted “No cops, no KKK, no fascist USA” while the two police officers and three Marshall Security LLC employees stood among the protesters in the lot.
About two-thirds of the crowd eventually moved to the nearby B-Line trail, while six protesters continued to discuss legality with the police. Eventually all of the protesters moved back to the front of the convention center at 12:35 p.m., to prepare to loudly chant during Young’s speech.
During this altercation, the police did not tell the media to leave the lot, and the members of the media continued walking around the lot in preparation for attendees exiting the event while officers stood and watched. Later, one protester remarked, “so press is allowed to go on private property?”
Around 12:40 p.m., protesters gathered five cars across the street from the convention center and began blasting their car horns nonstop. Another car had its windows rolled down and played “Fuck the Police” by N.W.A.
By 1:00 p.m., the expected end time of the speech, most protesters had dispersed from the front of the building back to the B-Line trail. One demonstrator passed out flyers of Young’s voting record to attendees leaving the discussion. Young talked with a few constituents in the back lot but left the premises without speaking to any protesters.
