Right-wing extremists are turning cars into weapons

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An SUV driver was taken in custody after driving through a crowd and over a barrier of bicycles that Black Lives Matters protesters used to try to prevent traffic on a Midtown road, police sources said.

The confrontation between the activists and the driver of a Dodge Durango unfolded at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue at about 9:10 p.m., according to witnesses and police.

The man was driving westbound on 42nd Street, when he was surrounded by roughly a dozen protesters, many on bikes, who were attempting to block access to the road for five minutes as marchers made their way to Bryant Park, an organizer told The Post.

As the ralliers tried to shut off road access, positioning themselves around the SUV, “the driver kept moving,” the organizer, who identified as Mary, 23, said.

“There was a skater in front … the driver was being aggressive,” Mary said. “[The skater] tried to make him understand that we weren’t going to be long.”

Since-deleted video of the incident posted on social media shows at least three protesters step in front of the vehicle near one of the intersection’s crosswalks as others to the side of the vehicle threaten to pop the car’s tires.

“My man, we’re gonna pop your tire bro,” one protester could be heard saying.

Another protester with a megaphone asks, “Do you have to go this way, sir?”

Seconds later, a voice in the video could be heard saying, “Pop his tire, pop his f—ing tire.”

A separate video, which has also since been deleted, shows a man stab the rear driver’s side tire several times. An audible hissing sound follows.

The driver then hits the gas, running over and dragging several bikes.

The man told police he fled because he felt threatened by the group, sources said.

He drove a few blocks away from where he was stopped by police and taken to the Manhattan South Precinct, sources said.

Police said the man has not been arrested. No injuries were reported.

SUV driver runs over bicycles, through NYC Black Lives Matter protest

I hope the "protesters" who attacked his car are also arrested

A Hempstead man was arrested Wednesday and charged with falsely reporting an incident after telling Suffolk police officers a driver’s vehicle struck him Monday night in Huntington Station during a Black Lives Matter protest, authorities said.

Keith Harrison, 56, was taken into custody Wednesday afternoon at his home and charged with third-degree falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor, police said.

Another protester was struck by the vehicle, described by police as a 2018 Toyota Rav 4, about 6:45 p.m. The driver, Anthony Cambareri, 36, of Coram, was arrested and faces a third-degree assault charge, police said.

Police said Harrison was issued a field appearance ticket and is scheduled to be arraigned in First District Court in Central Islip on July 28.

“Harrison filed a police report, stating he was also struck and was transported to Huntington Hospital. An investigation by Second Squad detectives determined Harrison was not struck,” police said in a statement.

A Suffolk police spokeswoman said Tuesday that third-degree assault "is the most appropriate charge."

Richard Toscani, Cambareri's Hauppauge-based attorney, said Tuesday that his client denies the charges.

"This was an accident, plain and simple," Toscani said. "Any other allegations are false and unfounded. This office will zealously represent Mr. Cambareri and will investigate these allegations."

Protest organizers said about 30 marchers were in the street on Broadway Monday night when a driver hit the two men before speeding away.

Jeremiah Bennett, 26, of East Meadow, said he was hit by the SUV.

He told Newsday earlier this week: “His charges need to be raised to at least a felony.”

A witness said Bennett hit the vehicle’s hood and then rolled off.

Suffolk police did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the case.

Organizers of the protest could not be reached immediately for comment.

A car drove through a crowd and a protester was shot in the suburban Denver suburb of Aurora during demonstrations against racial injustice.

The Aurora Police Department said on Twitter that protesters were walking on Interstate 225 Saturday when a vehicle drove through.

Police said a protester fired a weapon, striking at least one person who was taken to a hospital in stable condition.

Authorities said the vehicle was towed and they are investigating. Protesters also broke windows to the courthouse and a fire was started in an office, police said. An unlawful assembly was declared and police ordered protesters to leave the area, authorities said.

In Colorado, protesters have been drawing attention to the death of Elijah McClain, who was stopped by police while walking down an Aurora street in August 2019 after a 911 caller reported him as suspicious. Police placed him in a chokehold, and paramedics administered 500 milligrams of ketamine, a sedative, to calm him down. He went into cardiac arrest, was later declared brain dead and taken off life support.

A driver plowed through a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Austin, Texas and then shot dead an armed protester who confronted him, according to police and reports.

The unidentified victim was thought to have been “carrying a rifle and approached [the] suspect’s vehicle” just before 10 p.m. Saturday, Austin police spokeswoman Katrina Ratliff told reporters at the scene.

The car had sped through the crowd of protesters and slammed into an orange barrier before coming to a stop, witness Michael Capochiano told the Statesman.

“There were people around the car, yelling, and people sounding like they were frightened,” Capochiano told the paper.

The armed protester approached — then a shot rang out and he “dropped to the ground,” Capochiano said.

Video posted on social media from the same time showed protesters screaming and fleeing as an initial five shots echoed, followed by another three after a short pause, according to KVUE.

Police monitoring the rally found the victim with gunshot wounds and he was pronounced dead shortly after being taken to a local hospital, Ratliff said.

The driver sped away, according to the witnesses, before he was detained and is “cooperating with officers,” Ratliff said, saying it is being treated as a homicide.

The deadly shooting came as violence again broke out at protests across the country Saturday, with Seattle police declaring a riot and deploying flash bangs and pepper spray to try to clear an area previously deemed the “occupied protest zone.”

At least 68 people have driven cars into BLM protestors since May 25th:

https://www.mic.com/p/blm-protesters-ha ... y-29075259

As is evidenced over and over and over again for decades, the majority of partisan violence in the USA comes from right wing identifying people.

On Saturday night in Austin, Texas, a Black Lives Matter protester named Garrett Foster was shot and killed after a chaotic altercation with a motorist who apparently tried to aggressively drive past marching protesters in an downtown intersection. Foster was openly carrying an AK-47 rifle during the protest, which is legal to do in Texas. Austin Police announced on Sunday night that the driver said that he fired on Foster after he pointed his rifle at his car, while some witnesses have said Foster did not. The law enforcement investigation is ongoing. Below is everything we know so far.

The shooting
According to Austin police and witnesses, shortly before 10 p.m. local time, Black Lives Matter protesters were marching through the intersection of Fourth Street and Congress Avenue when an unidentified motorist honked their horn and then turned aggressively through the intersection — while protesters were still in it — and abruptly stopped. In a livestreamed video shot by independent journalist Hiram Gilberto Garcia, some of the protesters can be seen converging on the vehicle, at which point a man can be heard shouting, “Everybody back up!”

Five gunshots can then be heard, prompting the protesters to scream and run for cover. Soon after, three additional gunshots can then be heard, and sound like they came from a different weapon than the first round of gunfire. In another video the car can be seen driving away after the shooting:

When it was over, Garrett Foster, a 28-year-old white man marching in the protest with his disabled fiancée, was laying on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds in the pool of blood. Foster was carrying an AK-47 rifle while he marched, as fellow protesters say he often did as a regular participant, along with his fiancée, at the ongoing protests against police brutality in the city. Texas is an open-carry state where it is not uncommon to see protesters from across the political spectrum carrying firearms at demonstrations.

Medics performed CPR on Foster at the scene, but he was pronounced dead after being transported to Dell Seton Medical Center.

Police were already on the scene and responded to the shooting in less than a minute. A police official later said that they had taken the driver into custody and that he was cooperating with the investigation. No police officers fired their weapons, and no one other than Foster was injured, including his fiancée.

Witnesses and police say that the motorist fired on Foster after he approached the vehicle, but there are conflicting reports about whether or not Foster did anything to threaten the driver.

Witnesses have told reporters that Foster kept his rifle pointed at the ground as he approached the vehicle, and that he was not the only protester carrying a firearm during the march. They say that the driver pointed a handgun through the car window and fired at Foster. Witness Michael Capochiano told the New York Times that Foster “was not aiming the gun or doing anything aggressive with the gun”:

He was not holding it in an aggressive manner. I’m not sure if there was much of an exchange of words. It wasn’t like there was any sort of verbal altercations. He wasn’t charging at the car. He was just walking over there.
Capochiano said that he did not see the driver fire at anyone other than Foster. He also said that when the driver originally surged through the intersection, “You could hear the wheels squealing from hitting the accelerator so fast … I’m a little surprised that nobody got hit.”

The victim’s mother, Sheila Foster, told Good Morning America on Sunday morning that she had heard that Foster had been pushing his fiancée, Whitney Mitchell, who is Black and a quadruple amputee, in her wheelchair through the intersection when “this gentleman got out of his car and started firing shots, and my son was shot three times.”

But on Sunday evening, Austin Police announced that the driver told investigators that Foster had pointed his rifle at his car. Austin police chief Brian Manley said at a press conference that the driver of the car called 911 after the shooting to report that someone had pointed a gun at his vehicle and that he had fired on them. Manley said that the first person who appeared to fire was the driver, and then a second person (not Foster) drew a concealed handgun and opened fire on the car as it drove away. He said that police have heard from witnesses who had “several different versions of the incident” and that detectives are reviewing the “precise actions” of everyone involved. He asked for anyone with more information or footage of the event to come forward.

Chief Manley said that the driver and the second shooter had both been released “pending further investigation.” He did not identify either shooter and would not say why the driver had been in the area.

“We are heartbroken over the loss of Mr. Foster last night,” Manley said, adding that the shooting “is actively being investigated … in conjunction with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office.”

The victim
Garrett Foster and his fiancée, Whitney Mitchell, were apparently well-known at the ongoing peaceful BLM protests in downtown Austin over the last several weeks. Per the Statesman:

“A lot of us haven’t slept — I haven’t been alseep,” [witness Julian] Salazar said Sunday morning. “It’s been heartbreaking. A lot of us are angry, depressed, sad to learn that his wife now is going to be struggling. The one person she had here in Austin, who was always going to be there for her, is now gone.”

Foster had attended the protests in downtown Austin against police violence for weeks, which is how Salazar got to know him, he said. Foster was “always respectful, and he was an easy guy to get along with,” Salazar said. Foster did often talk to protesters about his rifle, which he often brought to the protests.

Indeed, earlier in his livestreamed coverage of the march, journalist Hiram Gilberto Garcia had briefly interviewed Foster and asked him about the rifle. In the video, Foster said that he was carrying the weapon because, “They don’t let us march in the streets anymore, so I gotta to practice some of our rights.” He also indicated he had the weapon for protection:

Speaking with Good Morning America, Foster’s mother said she found out about the shooting from Mitchell’s mother. Ms. Foster said he had told her the protests had always been peaceful, and that he wanted to demonstrate because he was against police brutality and wanted to support his Black fiancée, whom he has been with since they were both 17. She also said she wouldn’t have been surprised if he was was carrying his rifle, since he had a license to carry it and “would have wanted to protect himself” after seeing the violence at other protests around the country. In his Facebook posts, Foster repeatedly expressed anti-racist, libertarian, and anti-police views.

Foster’s sister, Anna Mayo, told the Statesman that her brother and Mitchell have “experienced so much hate just for their relationship in general” and that, “from day one, he’s fought to end that.” She also said that he was a strong supporter of the Second Amendment:

“My brother would have never, ever pointed a gun at somebody,” Mayo said. “He always carried his guns with him. He had a license to carry in Texas — we’re an open carry state. He always would exercise his right to carry, but he would never threaten somebody. He was one of the most kind-hearted people — that was the whole reason he was out there.”

Mitchell’s mother, Patricia Kirven, told the Dallas Morning News on Sunday that her daughter was “inconsolable.” Ms. Foster told the News that the couple had been engaged since they were 18, and that her son had taken care of Mitchell after she was struck with a mysterious illness in 2011 that resulted in her having to have all four of her limbs amputated

After [Mitchell] was shunted from her doctor to the emergency room to the intensive-care unit, Mitchell was put on life support, according to an article The News wrote about her in 2011. As Mitchell’s body tried to fight off infection, it shut down blood flow to her limbs. To fight septic shock, doctors amputated her arms and legs.

Sheila Foster said her son, who was in the military at the time, came home as quickly as possible to take care of Mitchell. “He’s been doing it ever since,” Foster told The News. “He loved that woman unconditionally.”

Foster and Mitchell moved to Austin about two years ago, the couple’s mothers said. Both shy and introverted, he took care of her and she designed and made clothes, all “with no arms and legs,” his mother said. Sewing started as a form of therapy for Mitchell, Kirven said, that grew into a passion and a business.

After the shooting, Mitchell and other protesters reassembled where Foster was shot for a vigil:

According to Foster’s LinkedIn profile, he served a little more than two years in the Air Force as an aircraft-maintenance crew chief, and was currently employed as a caregiver. According to his family, he received a discharge from the Air Force so he could come home to take care of Mitchell.

A GoFundMe set up for Foster’s fiancée and funeral expenses has already raised more than $90,000.

The shooters
The identity of the person who shot and killed Foster has not been confirmed, nor has the identity of the second person who fired on the driver’s car as he pulled away. Austin police said that both had legal permits for their concealed firearms.

The self-proclaimed leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Virginia was found guilty on Monday of six misdemeanor charges following a June incident where he drove a vehicle into a group of Black Lives Matter protesters.

Video footage from June 7 shows Harry H. Rogers driving onto the median to pass a group of cars behind 300 protesters. He was also caught on camera driving into at least two bicyclists and one demonstrator on foot.

Rogers purportedly boasted to authorities that he was the "highest-ranking member" of the KKK in the state and had been coordinating with 20 others to "defend" Confederate monuments in Richmond. He also told the cops to "check him out" on social media.

"Several witnesses reported that a vehicle revved their engine and drove through the protesters occupying the roadway," Henrico County Police said in a statement following the incident.

ne person was injured during Rogers' attack but was not seriously wounded.

Rogers, 36, was initially charged with attempted malicious wounding, felony vandalism, and assault and battery. A couple of weeks later, Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor brought additional charges against him, including four counts of assault with hate crimes, two counts of felonious attempted malicious wounding and one count of felony hit and run.

"I am charging Mr. Rogers with the strongest form of assault and hate crimes permitted under Virginia law," Taylor said. "...I will not tolerate this violence in Henrico. I have no doubt Mr. Rogers was motivated by bigotry and racism and should be severely punished for his egregious criminal behavior."

The Henrico County judge thought otherwise.

Roger was not found guilty of the hate crime charges. The judge argued that because some victims were white, Rogers did not target them because of their race, WTVR reported.

Following the incident, police officers found KKK memorabilia including patches, literature, and a manifesto in Rogers' Chevrolet truck. He also had an AR-15 firearm and two 20-round M4 magazines in his center console. A search of his home found multiple firearms, a vest with extended magazine clips, ammunition, and a green grand dragon robe.

Rogers' attorney George Townsend argued that the cyclist who Rogers is accused of hitting stepped toward Rogers' car during the collision.

Prior to his most recent arrest, Rogers had a handful of misdemeanors and traffic infractions against him.

In 2017, he was sentenced to 15 days in jail on a concealed weapons charge that stemmed from an incident where he showed up to a fast-food restaurant dressed in full Klan costume and caused a scene. He also has a trespassing charge "under advisement," which means he violated those terms when he picked up the newest charges against him.

And on May 29, the authorities were called after Rogers entered OrthoVirginia, a medical facility, without a mask. When the receptionist told him to put on a face-covering, he went to his car and came back in a Klan hood. When shown the door by staff, he yelled "white power," according to the police report.

It sad be normally the case extremists on one side leads extremists on the other side to act stupid also

A car plowed through a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters in Times Square on Thursday night in a frightening caught-on-video confrontation.

Police were hunting for the car — a black Ford Taurus with a bull bar in the front — and ask that anyone with injuries to come forward. The car was driven by a counter-protester attending a small pro-Trump rally in Duffy Square, an NYPD spokesman said.

The car was approaching a group of protesters at 46th St. and Seventh Ave., where about 300 people had gathered in a racial justice demonstration over the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester.

A group of protesters lined up bicycles in an attempt to block traffic shortly before 8:15 p.m., and the Taurus rolls right up to the line of bikes. It stops at first, then lurches forward through the crowd. One of the protesters swings a bicycle at it as it drives away.

The car clipped three of the bicycle riders who set up the barricade; their minor injuries were treated by volunteer medics at the protest.

The car just hit me. He hit me straight on and kept going,” said one of the cyclists, who gave only his first name, Rob. “I was working barricade. My knee is bad and my bike is ruined.”

An NYPD spokesman said officers tried to direct the car underneath the Marriott Hotel and away from the crowd, but the driver instead headed straight down 46th St.

The spokesman said Black Lives Matter protesters recognized the vehicle and tried to attack it, though that isn’t visible on the Twitter video, or an overhead live stream video of the corner. A reporter on the scene did not spot any protesters trying to attack the car before it drove through the crowd.

After video of the incident surfaced on Twitter, several people speculated the car was an unmarked police vehicle.

The NYPD took to Twitter to refute the claim.

“There is an ongoing investigation into an incident in Times Square involving a black Taurus sedan. This auto is NOT an NYPD vehicle,” a statement on the main NYPD twitter account reads. “There are currently no complainants. NYPD asks if there is anyone injured, please come forward.”