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.
WTF. I am so sick and tired of all this violence and death, all of this ignorance and all of this racism and bigotry. Just sick of it. I can’t imagine how anyone who is black has been so patient for so long, because I would’ve exploded long ago, and I’m ready to explode now, but explosive violence begets explosive violence, and you solve nothing until one party is crushed. That’s not the solution. Now we’ve got the racist in chief saying nothing worthwhile. Only fucking “law and order” dog whistles.
I’d ask Jesus to save me from the ignorance, racism, bigotry, violence and death, but Jesus isn’t going to fix our fucking mess. We’ve got to do it. We’ve got to get politicians everywhere to understand and change. We’ve got to elect leaders who fix stuff instead of placing us against each other for their political advantage. We have to take responsibility, recognize that the system is inhumane, and fix it. NOW.
May justice be served.
Someone watched the GOP convention!
First thing I thought. When people recklessly wave guns at people peacefully walking past, when they endanger others’ lives for no reason and are charged for it, when people like that are made goddamn convention speakers, of course, of course, of course it’s going to embolden other vigilante wannabe idiots. God damn you, Trump. God damn you to hell.
Former PA resident here. Juniata PA, historically, has been Klan land. So, I’m appalled and not surprised. The racism of central PA remains as deep as it is lethal. It’s also bone ignorant, since many of these same residents had ancestors who fought for the Union. But, see toxic white supremacy…