Did The Man Who Ran His Car Into Protesters On The Downtown Mall Act In Fear Of Counter-Protesters? [Answer: Not Likely]
I told JQ that I suspect that this was a salient possibility, but didn't mention it here for fear of sounding even nuttier than I already do.
Nobody knows much of anything as of now. Both obvious explanations of the driver's actions are plausible: he might be a right-wing extremist aiming to harm the left-wing protesters, or he might have been fleeing attacks by the counter-protesters. The latter seems somewhat difficult to believe given the video I've seen. However, contemporary left-wing protesters do have a history of and penchant for violence. Not that the Klan et al. don't... It's pretty unlikely that someone could think that he could ram his car into a crowd and get away with it...so that seems to offer a bit of support to the fear hypothesis.
I suppose we'll find out about this all soon enough.
[Looks like Taylor Lorenz was likely wrong about this, and was just reporting speculation, though she herself does seem to have been attacked for reporting on the counter-protest just before the car attack.]
Nobody knows much of anything as of now. Both obvious explanations of the driver's actions are plausible: he might be a right-wing extremist aiming to harm the left-wing protesters, or he might have been fleeing attacks by the counter-protesters. The latter seems somewhat difficult to believe given the video I've seen. However, contemporary left-wing protesters do have a history of and penchant for violence. Not that the Klan et al. don't... It's pretty unlikely that someone could think that he could ram his car into a crowd and get away with it...so that seems to offer a bit of support to the fear hypothesis.
I suppose we'll find out about this all soon enough.
[Looks like Taylor Lorenz was likely wrong about this, and was just reporting speculation, though she herself does seem to have been attacked for reporting on the counter-protest just before the car attack.]
posted by Winston Smith at
9:53 PM
2 Comments:
Yeah, I don't know which video you've seen, but there's video showing him sitting in his car, completely free from harassment or any plausible legitimate cause for his behavior. While stopped in the street, he actually doesn't have anyone near him in the street; just people walking by on the sidewalks. From there, he hits the gas and accelerates into an area maybe 30m away, congested with cars and counter-protesters.
There are pictures of his twisted face screaming as he does it.
I don't see any plausible forthcoming evidence to indicate that this was in any way the fault of his targets.
Haven't seen that one, but even the much-less-damning videos I've seen are hard to square with the "he was attacked" hypothesis.
Turns out that seems to have been speculation by police who weren't on the scene:
https://twitter.com/TaylorLorenz?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home