An activist marching in a group from Milwaukee to Washington, D.C. was shot late Monday night, resulting in non-life-threatening injuries, but no charges yet.
The shooting, which appeared to be captured in a Facebook Live video stream, occurred less than 20 minutes after a property owner called the police to complain that the activist group was in a private business parking lot in Juniata Township, Pennsylvania, state police told reporters.
“The property owners confronted the activists,” state police spokesperson Brent Miller told reporters at a press briefing. “The confrontation escalated and gun shots were exchanged between the property owners and the activists.”
Neither the victim nor any alleged shooters have been identified by authorities. Police said they recovered two guns at the scene that had both been fired, a shotgun and a handgun, but they did not answer questions about whether anyone in the activist group had fired a weapon, nor whether both weapons had been fired by the property owners.
“It would be inappropriate to make a determination, or a prosecutorial decision, with the information we have at this point,” Bedford County District Attorney Lesley Childers-Potts said at Tuesday’s press briefing.
One activist marching with the group, Frank Nitty, captured a confrontation on a Facebook Live stream. At one point after the first shots ring out, Nitty zooms in on two men, one of whom appears to be holding a gun. “We’re leaving!” someone is heard shouting shortly before the shooting picks up again. Nitty’s footage then shows a bloodied man being driven away.
In another video Tuesday, Nitty said the activist group was shot out of nowhere.
“We start walking, and basically we heard a gun shot, a loud bang,” he said. For a moment, Nitty recalled, the activist group wasn’t sure what the noise was. “Then we heard another loud bang, and we were like, ‘Somebody’s shooting at us.’”
Nitty said the men yelled racial slurs at the activists and told them, “Don’t come through our town.”
No one has been charged yet in the shooting, but police said the property owners had been questioned and that charges could be forthcoming.
