A truck driver careened into a bunch of demonstrators in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday as they crossed the road throughout an in any other case peaceable protest of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The unidentified male driver of a Ford truck rammed into a number of protesters — all of them girls — on the tail finish of a procession, rolling over one girl’s ankle and sending her to the hospital, witnesses mentioned.
“He tried to homicide them,” mentioned a neighborhood journalist and witness to the assault, Lyz Lenz. “These girls see him coming and a bunch of individuals put their fingers out to cease him. And he simply retains going.”
A number of witnesses, together with one of many victims, described the scene in interviews with HuffPost: The male driver was ready behind a number of automobiles at a crimson mild downtown as a throng of protesters crossed the road.
He grew to become “impatient,” as a number of witnesses mentioned, and hit the gasoline, maneuvering round a number of automobiles to ram protesters.
Video taken by Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker reveals a number of girls standing in entrance of the truck with their arms outstretched, making an attempt to get the motive force to cease. However the driver retains pushing ahead and bowls them over, injuring a number of of them.
One of many demonstrators, Alexis Russell, will be seen within the video holding a protest signal and reaching into the motive force’s aspect window because the truck rolls ahead. She instructed HuffPost that she was making an attempt to steer him away from the opposite protesters.
“I had a fight-or-flight response,” Russell instructed HuffPost. “He had his window down. I grabbed the again of the window to maintain up along with his automotive and tried to seize the steering wheel. Sooner or later he grabbed my signal and ripped it, and I fell, and he proceeded to run over one of many women.”
Russell mentioned she was “shaken up” however in any other case unhurt. The hospitalized girl, she mentioned, was “completely distraught.”
Metropolis Councilwoman Ashley Vanorny confirmed that Cedar Rapids police had been referred to as and have been investigating.
A number of witnesses argued that the assault was motivated by anger over the protest, which was simply one among many who flared up throughout the nation after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom struck down Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Deliberate Parenthood on Friday.
Molly Monk, a witness, instructed HuffPost that the person didn’t give any audible indication that he was anti-abortion, “however he did exit of his technique to hit protesters on the street who had very seen, very clear indicators that they have been pro-choice.”
“It makes me really feel just like the pro-life motion is a totally lie if, with a view to be towards people who find themselves protesting for abortion rights, you attempt to homicide them in my road, in my neighborhood,” mentioned Monk. “It makes me very, very unhappy, very damage and really indignant that that is what folks suppose pro-life means.”
Regardless of latest calls from Republican lawmakers to guard their fellow abortion opponents from hurt within the wake of Friday’s Supreme Courtroom ruling, the anti-abortion motion has an extended historical past of violence.
Within the final 43 years, anti-abortion activists have dedicated at the least 11 murders, 26 tried murders, 956 identified threats of hurt or demise, 614 stalking incidents and 4 kidnappings, in response to the Nationwide Abortion Federation. The supposedly “pro-life” motion has bombed 42 abortion clinics, set fireplace to 194 and made 667 bomb threats.
Extra on the Supreme Courtroom abortion ruling:
- Supreme Courtroom strikes down Roe v. Wade, dismantling decades-old precedent
- Roe overturned: The struggle begins
- Abortion is now unlawful in these states
- Liberal justices dissent with “sorrow” for “tens of millions of American girls”
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “Now we have to fill the streets”
- Clarence Thomas: Circumstances defending homosexual marriage and contraception needs to be subsequent
- Republicans make it clear they wish to ban abortion nationwide
- Donald Trump praises SCOTUS resolution
- West Coast states launch a plan to guard out-of-state abortion sufferers
- Right here’s how the world is reacting to the tip of Roe
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