In many states, there are reports about verbal or physical attacks on “Black Lives Matter” demonstrators.
The protests against police brutality and racism following George Floyd’s death have entered their third week.
The demonstrations against the police treatment of George Floyd and police brutality against Black people in general have entered their third week, and every day large crowds have been on the streets in numerous American cities.
The protests have also sparked some counter-demonstrations and attacks against demonstrators, which police in several states are investigating. On Monday, a man who police assume is a high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan was arrested and charged with driving a truck into a crowd of protesters in Richmond, Virginia, on Sunday.
Among other charges, the 36-year-old man is charged with assault and battery on demonstrators who protested in favor of the “Black Lives Matter” cause.
According to investigators, it is being investigated whether the man attacked the demonstration based on the demonstrators’ ethnicity or skin color, and therefore should also be charged with hate crimes.
Elsewhere, similar episodes have been reported. In Seattle, a man drove his car at top speed directly toward the protesters. According to The Seattle Times, when some demonstrators tried to stop the car, the man shot one demonstrator in the arm.
In Texas, Utah, New York and California, there have also been episodes where “Black Lives Matter” demonstrators have been threatened and verbally assaulted with racist slurs. In Suffolk, New York, a 22-year-old man reported an assault by what he describes as “supporters of white supremacy.”
“They truly started attacking us with no warning,” reads the demonstrator’s explanation on the social media platform Instagram.
Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone announced Monday at a news conference that Suffolk police have received the report and are investigating the incident.
“We take hate crimes very seriously in this county,” he said.
In several media outlets in the United States, some of the people behind the attacks have been identified as members of the “Boogaloo” movement and other groups that, according to experts in extremism and terrorism, can be both white supremacists and people who are against those in power and the authorities in general.
They “hope to set off a series of chain reactions, with violence fomenting violence, and more and more people join the fray,” according to an analysis on the blog Lawfare by counterterrorism researcher Daniel Byman.
Floyd died May 25 in police custody following a rough arrest in which a police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, despite Floyd repeatedly saying he could not breathe. The officer who was responsible is now charged with murder.
The incident has triggered global protests and has become a symbol of structural racism in the United States and across the world.
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