Video shows semi-truck driving through protesters in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA – A semi-truck drove through a crowd of thousands protesters who were marching down a highway in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Sunday, witnesses told Al Jazeera.
Live video of incident showed demonstrators rallying against the death of George Floyd – an unarmed Black man who died on Monday after a white police officer knelt on his neck – running as the truck appeared to charge them. The truck then came to a stop, and protesters begin to gather around it.
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“[We] jumped over the barricade and into the grass” as the truck approached, said Sydney Rubel, who witnessed the incident.
Rubel told Al Jazeera that she did not see the truck coming, but was alerted by other protesters to move out of the way.
BREAKING- Truck moves at full speed into a crowd of thousands of demonstrators #GeorgeFloyd #Minnesota @KSTP pic.twitter.com/pUscK8JgFB
— Brett Hoffland (@BrettHoffland) May 31, 2020
Natalie Jokinen, another witness, told Jazeera that she and dozens of others, among them children, had been protesting peacefully when the incident took place.
“We were all sitting down, we could hear the truck getting faster and faster,” Jokinen said, adding that she was “just terrified”, by the events.
In a series of tweets, John Reinan, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star spoke to witnesses who said the driver drove the demonstrators at about 30 mph (48 kph).
“A truck came. The horns were blaring. It was picking up speed. It was ploughing down the highway into the protesters. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” Reinan tweeted, quoting a witness named Melanie Ramos.
Very disturbing actions by a truck driver on I-35W, inciting a crowd of peaceful demonstrators. The truck driver was injured taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries. He is under arrest. It doesn’t appear any protesters were hit by the truck. #MACCMN
— MnDPS_DPS (@MnDPS_DPS) May 31, 2020
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety said in a tweet that the actions of the driver were “very disturbing” and incited “a crowd of peaceful demonstrators”.
Officials said that the driver suffered “non-life threatening injuries” and is under arrest.
“It was a tanker truck full of gas. You could smell it and hear it sloshing around. He was coming about 30 mph. I know at least one person who definitely needs help.” Dominic Kerr of Minneapolis
— John Reinan (@StribGuy) May 31, 2020
The police said no injuries among the protesters had been reported, but Reinan spoke to a witness named Dominic Kerr, who said he had seen “at least one person who needed help”.
Other witnesses told Al Jazeera that protesters were throwing bikes in front of the truck “to try to get it to stop”.
Sunday’s incident took place on the sixth day of protests in Minneapolis over police brutality and Floyd’s death.
Protesters are demanding all four Minneapolis officers involved in Floyd’s death be charged. So far, only Derek Chauvin – the white officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd pleaded “I can’t breathe” – has been arrested. On Friday, he was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.