Riot son, p.21
Riot Son, page 21
“You got hit by the car?” Devon asked.
“Nah,” the man said, before chugging some water. “Kicked, I think. I’m blessed, though. Some lady died down there.”
“Someone died? You saw this?” Garrett asked. He had to ask if this was eyewitness testimony, because if so, maybe their cameras needed to come back out, or it was time to hit the record buttons on their phones, something.
“I heard someone say it,” the man said. “They said, ‘I can’t find a pulse. She’s gone.’”
Goosebumps rippled over Devon’s arms, and the hair on his head prickled up. He and Garrett wouldn’t know that they knew the dead woman until hours later, all Devon knew in the moment was a deep, selfish gratitude. If somebody had to die today, he was so damn happy that it wasn’t his love, his found treasure, his riot son.
46.
All Lives Splatter:
Car-Ramming Attacks Against Activists
Stochastic Terrorism and Vehicle-Ramming
“All Lives Splatter,” isn’t that cute? Just a fun, widely-circulated joke about intentional vehicular homicide being shared by police officers, bosses, and racially-stoked citizens. That is about what “stochastic terrorism” means: “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act,” aka terrorism, which is described as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” For example, right-wing publication The Daily Caller posted a minute-and-a-half long video with the headline, “Here’s A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road,” that is playfully set to a cover of Ludacris’s “Move Bitch” (with aggressive lyrics beginning, “Move bitch, get out the way”). This post was picked up and disseminated by an echo chamber of other websites, including Fox Nation, “an entertainment streaming service brought to you by FOX News,” they proudly proclaim. The posts went around in January of 2017 and were taken down in August, after Heather Heyer was murdered. Who is Heather Heyer? Tragically, one of many. On September 11 of that same year, the Chelan County Sheriff’s Department in Washington state posted a meme from a group called “Libtards; ya gotta love ’em!” that said “ALL LIVES SPLATTER, nobody cares about your protest, keep your ass out of the road.” The image included a drawing of a vehicle with a mangled body behind it, a fleeing person in front of it, and another body about to be impacted by the hood of the car. That body had a bow on its head, presumably marking it as female. Similar memes with identical language were still being used by officials in 2020: a West Virginia Fire Chief had it on a T-shirt in June, and a Seattle detective posted the meme online just hours after the vehicular homicide of local protester Summer Taylor in July. Who is Summer Taylor? Again, another one of many. Let’s say their names.
Crowd-Ramming Intimidations, Injuries, and Deaths
Here are just a few examples of protesters being assaulted or killed by vehicles ramming through crowds or targeting them directly in the years preceding 2020.
November 25, 2015 — Minneapolis, MN: Unidentified Juvenile. A sixteen-year-old girl at a Black Lives Matter protest outside of Minneapolis Police’s 3rd Precinct (prompted by the failure to indict the Ferguson, MO police officer who killed Michael Brown) was injured when a forty-year-old man ran his honking vehicle through the crowd. The driver was originally listed as a “victim” because according to the police report his “vehicle was damaged by a large group of people” and while “attempting to flee from the mob, he struck a pedestrian.” After a review of video evidence, the driver was later changed to “suspect” and the injured pedestrian child was recognized as the victimized party. The driver later pleaded guilty to failure to yield to a pedestrian, a misdemeanor with no jail time, plus a $575 fine.
August 9, 2016 — Ferguson, MO: Unidentified Man. At a peaceful vigil on the second anniversary of Michael Brown’s death at the hands of police, a car sped through a crowd of roughly 75 people and struck a man so forcefully that he flew through the air. Shots were fired at the fleeing car in response. Again there was video of this pedestrian being run down on a well-lighted street, but the police said the act was unintentional, that the woman driving the car was “very, very cooperative.” No one in the vehicle was injured, but police issued a plea to the public to help identify those who shot at the car. The protester was badly injured and taken in a private vehicle for medical help. No arrests were made.
August 12, 2017 — Charlottesville, VA: Heather Heyer. In response to the white supremacist Unite the Right rally regarding the removal of a Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee, thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer and other counter-protesters were attacked when a twenty-one-year-old Nazi enthusiast rammed his car deliberately into the crowd. Again this was caught on video, showing the preemptive reversal of the car so it would have room to speed up before crashing into a crowd of human beings. Again the driver argued that, while safely seated in a Dodge Challenger, he “feared for his safety.” In addition to Heather’s death, 19 other protesters were injured, including a woman who suffered a broken pelvis and other long-lasting injuries, and another individual who required multiple surgeries on her right leg after the attack, as well as continued use of a wheelchair and cane. The 45th President of the U.S., upon hearing about this event days later said, “I think there’s blame on both sides.” The driver was found guilty of first-degree murder, five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, 29 counts of committing federal hate crimes, as well as a hit-and-run charge. He was sentenced to life in prison twice, by federal and state courts, along with other penalties.
April 1, 2018 — Sacramento, CA: Wanda Cleveland. While demonstrating against the police killing of Stephon Clark, who was killed unarmed in his grandmother’s backyard, sixty-two-year-old Wanda Cleveland was struck by a Sheriff’s Department vehicle, the officer-driver of which did not stop to render aid. During the incident, which was filmed, two Sheriff’s Department vehicles were stopped among protesters. The lead car crept slowly forward as a megaphoned voice became increasingly irritated at having to repeat, “Back away from my vehicle.” When the lead car moved up, the second vehicle rushed forward in an unnecessary and possibly malicious burst of speed, knocking Wanda to the ground. “He never even stopped,” Wanda said. “It was a hit-and-run. If I did that I’d be charged.” She was taken to the hospital with minor injuries to her head and arms that nevertheless cost over $43,000 to treat. In October later that year, California Highway Patrol deemed Wanda was at fault for being in front of the public service vehicle that hit her and failed to stop and render aid. She filed a lawsuit in 2019 seeking damages for her injuries.
August 14, 2019 — Central Falls, RI: ICE Detention Protesters. In solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, protests were also held against ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detainment and imprisonment of Latine asylum-seekers, immigrants, and children. Outside of the Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island, peaceful demonstrators, including the Jewish activists who organized similar nationwide protests to try and see these facilities (likened to concentration camps) shut down, were terrorized when a corrections guard rammed his vehicle through sitting demonstrators, breaking the leg of a sixty-year-old man. Law enforcement then swarmed in, not to detain the driver, but to pepper spray the protesters. One of them was a woman in her seventies who went to the hospital due to being maced. The officer who drove the vehicle ultimately resigned.
July 4, 2020 — Seattle, WA: Summer Taylor. During a closed highway demonstration, twenty-four-year-old Summer Taylor and another thirty-two-year-old protester were rammed by a twenty-seven-year-old in a Jaguar XJL. He drove the wrong way up an Interstate exit ramp and maneuvered around a three-vehicle barricade to hit both women. The one who survived suffered multiple fractures and internal injuries that required several days in intensive care at the hospital. Summer Taylor died due to her injuries. Again, this murder was filmed, again the perpetrator claimed this was an accident and pleaded “not guilty.”
Videos posted online of these incidents never fail to call forth a wave of racist comments, violent vitriol, and talk of human beings as “speed bumps.”
It’s Not Terrorism if It’s Legal
Under the law, it’s somewhat difficult to pretend that gunning a vehicle through a crowd of people is accidental. Fortunately for psychos, some lawmakers want to make vehicular attacks and homicides a little more legal if they’re against the right kind of protesters. Here is some of the language put forth in state House and Senate Bills (HB and SB) between the deaths of Heather and Summer:
Florida’s SB 1096 and HB 1419: SB 1096 prohibits a person from interfering with or obstructing traffic during certain demonstrations or protests, provides criminal penalties if they do; exempts a driver from liability for injury or death to any person who does bother traffic under those circumstances. HB 1419 does the same as above, but specifies burden of proof.
Kentucky’s HB 53: An act to make wearing a face-concealing mask or hood while engaging in a public protest a Class A misdemeanor; make obstruction of traffic a Class A misdemeanor; prohibit any person (including a public servant) from preventing official police duties during a protest; abolish all criminal or civil liability for a motor vehicle driver who accidentally causes injury or death to a person obstructing the flow of traffic during a public demonstration that has no permit (exemption for intentional infliction of injury or death).
North Carolina’s HB 330: Provides immunity from civil liability to drivers who, “while exercising due care,” injure anyone blocking traffic in a public right-of-way during a protest. Drivers should not be immune from “willful or wanton conduct.”
North Dakota’s HB 1203: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a driver of a motor vehicle who negligently causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway may not be held liable for any damages,” and “a driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway is not guilty of an offense.”
Rhode Island’s HB 5690: A driver who is “exercising due care and injures another person who is participating in a protest or demonstration and is blocking traffic in a public right-of-way shall be immune from civil liability for such injury.”
Tennessee’s SB 944 and HB 668: SB 944 “provides civil immunity for the driver of an automobile who injures a protester who is blocking traffic in a public right-of-way if the driver was exercising due care.” HB 668 is identical to the above.
Texas’s HB 250: An act that says, “A person operating a motor vehicle who injures another person with the motor vehicle is not liable for the injury if, at the time of the injury: (1) the person operating the motor vehicle was exercising due care; and (2) the person injured was blocking traffic in a public right-of-way while participating in a protest or demonstration.” Exemption is made for “injury caused by grossly negligent conduct.”
These bills help to make extremists feel safer when terrorizing those exercising their constitutional rights to speak and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
47.
Hazel was gone. Blunt force trauma to her torso. Possibly a hate crime since the car was driven by an avowed white supremacist and neo-Nazi.
He was twenty years old, barely. His mother was calling into Fox News saying he was her very sweet baby, he wasn’t racist he was just proud of being white and that’s okay, also he was only afraid of the crowd and the crash was an accident caused by fair and understandable panic. He was called “cherub-faced,” “clean-cut,” and “shy and unassuming” by news outlets. The cops he was allowed to turn himself into said he was calm, not angry when he talked to them, and that he seemed to show remorse. He already had a crowdsourced account online stacking hundreds of thousands of dollars for his defense.
Hazel was misidentified several times as Chinese, not Vietnamese. They said she hailed from both San Jose and Ho Chi Minh. Many outlets decided to just say Asian and call it a day, while totting her up as a victim of the president’s insistence on saying “kung flu” regarding COVID-19. They said she was a nurse and a medic interchangeably, because she worked as a paramedic but at some point in her life also studied to be a nurse. She was thirty-nine years old, and her parents couldn’t be understood for comment because their English was only so-so. Her partner medic had relatively nice things to say about her, but it was like he was giving a performance review, not an obituary soundbite. “Hazel was a hard worker, and she was really good with female patients because of her empathy. She taught me so much, and we’re all going to miss her.” Lena had posted an editorial about her dead friend, but it was less about Hazel herself — her habits, her life — and more about her death, the unfairness, these goddamn Nazis infesting America in political offices, police departments, and school boards. A fair point, but not so fair to Hazel.
Garrett took a quiet back seat to all of this for the first twenty-four hours. He watched Devon worry about Tula, watched Tula vacillate between numb, sorrowful, and poisonously unsurprised. She wouldn’t meet Garrett’s gaze for the rest of the day, even though they took her all the way home on the fourth and stayed the night again. They heard her crying under the fireworks and/or explosions of the night, but left her alone.
It was Devon who knew why she couldn’t look at Garrett for a little while, and he explained when Garrett whispered over the side of the couch, “She can’t possibly blame me, right?”
Devon sat up and put his lips right against Garrett’s ear, so he wouldn’t be overheard.
“She might be blaming herself a little, since she’s the one who invited Hazel out on the Fourth,” Devon said. “She was also hoping Hazel would be for her what you are to me, and right now part of her is furious that her riot treasure is gone, and mine isn’t. She loves you though, she knows that and I know that and I hope you do, too.”
“Of course I do,” Garrett whispered back. “She trusted me with her plants and she gave me some, what else is that if not love?”
Devon smiled. Even in the dark, Garrett knew the sound of it.
“If Tula looked at you too soon, and you saw her thinking, ‘Why not you instead of her?’ she couldn’t stand it. She wouldn’t mean it, not like that, but she’s hurt, and part of her wants everyone else to hurt just as bad.”
“Oh,” Garrett said. He wouldn’t want to see that in Tula’s eyes; he might never forget it if he did.
“It’ll pass, we’ve just gotta be patient with her.”
The very next day, there was a vigil.
Some local representatives were there, but nobody who was nationally recognizable. The captain or chief of the EMS department read a statement, Garrett didn’t know what their top brass was called. Clergy came out from several different faiths — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist. They said a few words that all who were gathered could agree on: this shouldn’t have happened, hate is ugly, and Hazel was a healer and a hero who deserved better. Everyone said her name, wrote her notes, lit candles, and left flowers and trinkets at the tree near the place she was killed.
Hazel’s father was there, too. He accepted handshakes and condolences, but no one Garrett knew spoke to him. All he had to say was, “Thank everyone for coming. My wife is grateful that you are here for our daughter because she’s too sad to be here today. I thank you, Hazel thanks you, she was everything to us.”
Michelle and Jarvis were in attendance as well, each of them stony with control of their sorrow. Michelle hugged Tula when that short speech from Hazel’s father made her cry, but Tula pulled herself together in under a minute. She crossed her arms, sniffed up her tears, and started cracking jokes about nothing towards Devon. Michelle and Devon traded places like electrons, and when Michelle came to stand beside Garrett she asked him, “Would you like to pray with me?”
Garrett hadn’t expected anyone to ask, and it nearly startled him. He figured he was among friendly atheists to a one, but when it was offered, he realized that he would indeed like to pray, very much. He hadn’t done it in years, not since his parents kicked him out, made him feel as if their God didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, and since that was the only God whom Garrett had ever known, he stayed away.
“You wouldn’t mind?” Garrett asked.
Michelle put out both of her hands, palms up, and Garrett placed his hands into hers.
She went with an oldie and a goldie, the King James Version of the 23rd psalm.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Garrett mouthed the words along with her, but didn’t speak lest he start crying, too. Something about Michelle made it seem like you could fall apart because she wouldn’t, at least not today.
“Thank you,” he told her, swallowing hard so his voice wouldn’t waver. “That was very nice.” The prayer was very nice, the gesture and offer even more so.
