#Lancaster mayor calls for peace amid police-involved shooting protests

Lancaster Mayor Danene Sorace on Monday called for peace and extended condolences to the family of Ricardo Munoz, the knife-wielding man whose police-shooting death sparked unrest in the city.

“My heart breaks for Ricardo Munoz’s family and the devastation it brought our community,” Sorace said in a press briefing. “A life was lost and lives were forever changed, including the officer involved.”

The lawman was responding to a call for a domestic disturbance when Munoz, 27, burst from a home and charged at him, holding the blade aloft, according to police.

The cop fired multiple times, killing Munoz, a move that triggered a night of sometimes violent protests in the city of 59,000.

“While the vast majority of the protests have been peaceful, last night’s events took a turn resulting in considerable damage,” Sorace said. “I want to be clear that there is no place for this in our community.

“Peaceful protest must prevail.”

Some demonstrators — whom Sorace and other local leaders suggested with anecdotal evidence were not from Lancaster — were seen vandalizing cop cars, lighting fires, looting and hurling bricks at a local police stationhouse.

Sorace blamed the shooting itself and the resulting rage in part on years of fiscal cutbacks, a lack of affordable housing and opportunity for impoverished Lancastrians and general social unease over the coronavirus pandemic.

She did not offer new insight into the case itself, citing an ongoing investigation by authorities.