Hundreds of Vehicle Ramming Attacks Mark New Norm in America's Civil Unrest
There were 104 separate incidents of drivers crashing into protests between
May 27, the date of the George Floyd killing, and September 5, including 96
civilians and 8 police vehicles.
by Alan Macleod
September 28th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
Last week a black pickup truck plowed into a large crowd of anti-racist
demonstrators protesting the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Hollywood.
Video of the incident shows the driver hit a young man, subsequently
accelerating over his body to escape a crowd converging on him. In Seattle,
a man in a black sedan car barreled into a large demonstration protesting
the killing of George Floyd. After he stopped, he got out and shot a
protestor at point blank range. The crowd scattered in terror. The man
calmly left the area. Meanwhile, in Buffalo on Wednesday, a woman screaming
racial slurs slammed her truck into an anti-racist demonstration.
Incidents like these have become commonplace all over America. Wherever
there are protests over racial injustice, there often are acts of violence
against them. Indeed, according to Ari Weil, a terrorism researcher at the
University of Chicago's Project on Security and Threats, there were 104
separate incidents of drivers crashing into protests between May 27 (the
date of the George Floyd killing) and September 5, including 96 civilians
and 8 police vehicles. The motivations behind some of the incidents are
unknown or contested.
Vehicular based terror attacks have been common for many decades in some
parts of the world, but are only recently gaining a grizzly popularity in
the United States. Perhaps the most infamous incident was the 2017
Charlottesville attack, where James Alex Fields Jr. plowed through a crowd
of anti-racist demonstrators, protesting the far-right gathering happening
in the Virginia town. Fields killed activist Heather Heyer and injured 28
more. He was sentenced to two life sentences plus an additional 419 years
for his crimes.
Videos of these incidents have spread like wildfire among alt-right and
neo-Nazi circles, with many users on far-right forums encouraging others to
do the same. The hashtag "All Lives Splatter" continues to be a popular one
on social media like Instagram or Twitter.
Many of the actions against Black Lives Matter protesters seem to have the
tacit approval of local law enforcement. The driver of the Hollywood truck
was immediately detained but quickly released by the police, a remarkable
decision, given she was a suspect in what could have been considered a major
terror attack. And after shooting protesters at point blank range in front
of them, the Seattle attacker calmly walked towards police lines, where
officers protected him, turning their backs on the armed killer, to shield
him from unarmed demonstrators. After the incident, Seattle Detective Mike
Brown was suspended from the department after sharing an "All Lives
Splatter" meme on his Facebook profile. The post features a truck driving
over a line fleeing protesters, with the text "get your ass off the road."
Meanwhile, Wisconsin police openly fraternized with Kenosha killer Kyle
Rittenhouse, telling the armed 17-year-old "we appreciate you guys, we
really do," before he went on his spree last month.
Police have also directly encouraged terror attacks on black protesters. In
2016, St. Paul cop Sgt. Jeffrey Rothecker urged residents to run over anyone
demonstrating on Martin Luther King Day. "Keep traffic flowing and don't
slow down for any of these idiots who try and block the street.run them
over," he said. Rothecker was also a serial troll, harassing social justice
communities on Facebook. "F BLM" and "any others that support what they are
doing," he wrote.
A study of police officers' public Facebook accounts by Injustice Watch
found that 20 percent of officers had shared hate speech or content
glorifying extreme violence or murdering of protesters, such as "All Lives
Splatter." This figure rose to 40 percent for recently retired officers.
Police have also rammed protesters themselves. In the immediate wake of the
George Floyd killings, there were multiple incidents of NYPD cars plowing
into protestors. Demonstrators in Brooklyn had placed a yellow road barrier
between themselves and a stationary police car. A second police cruiser
accelerates into the crowd, knocking multiple people to the ground before
fleeing. The first car follows suit, driving into yet more people. Other
videos show that this was not an isolated incident.
While police appear unwilling or unable to prevent, and, in some cases, even
arrest perpetrators of crime against protestors, they often overreact
hysterically in the opposite direction. Earlier this month, Texas police
deployed SWAT forces, bomb robots, and a cavalcade of police to arrest a
woman and her dog. She had committed no crime, nor was firmly suspected of
any. However, decals on her vehicle read "Black Lives Matter" and "fuck
these racist police." State troopers decided this "anti-law enforcement
rhetoric" necessitated such a response.
Meanwhile, when right-wing demonstrators are attacked, the justice system
responds quickly. Last week, a person of color drove through a pro-Trump
counter-protest, breaking the legs of one man. Unlike with other cases, she
was immediately apprehended and charged with attempted murder and assault
with a deadly weapon.
Attacks like these against conservative movements are less common, however.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the
far-right has been responsible for over 90 percent of the terror attacks of
2020, with religious extremists accountable for the bulk of the rest. With a
resurgent far-right and a police force that has shown worrying signs of
alignment with them, we are unlikely to have seen the last vehicle attack
this year.
