A car passed through a crowd and a protester was shot in the Denver suburb of Aurora during protests against racial injustice.
The Aurora Police Department said on Twitter that protesters were walking on Interstate 225 on Saturday when a vehicle entered. Police said a protester fired a weapon and hit at least one person who was transferred to a hospital in stable condition.
Authorities said the vehicle was towed and are investigating. Protesters also smashed windows in court and a fire started in an office, police said. An illegal assembly was declared and the police ordered the protesters to leave the area, authorities said.
Tensions have escalated in recent protests against racial injustice since federal officials were dispatched to quell the protests in Portland, Oregon. Police declared riots in Seattle on Saturday.
Protests sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man in Minnesota who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes, have also highlighted other cases of fatal police violence.
In Colorado, protesters have been drawing attention to the death of Elijah McClain, who was detained by police while walking down an Aurora street in August 2019 after a 911 call denounced him as a suspect. The police placed him in a stranglehold and paramedics administered 500 milligrams of ketamine, a sedative, to calm him. He went into cardiac arrest, then he was declared brain dead and life support was taken from him.
Meanwhile, in Kentucky, hundreds of predominantly black armed activists demanded justice for Breonna Taylor during peaceful protests in Louisville that drew opposing protesters from a group of white militias.
Police closed the streets and set up barricades to keep the two groups separate as tensions remained high in a city where protests have erupted for months over the death of Taylor, a black woman killed when police stormed her apartment in March. .
When black activists dressed in black uniforms reached the heart of the city center on Saturday afternoon, most members of the white militia were already gone. The police in full revolt watched.
Earlier in the day, three people were accidentally shot in a park where black activists had gathered, police said. The victims, all of whom were members of the militia group, were rushed to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
“This is a tragic situation that could have been much worse,” Louisville Metro Police Chief Robert Schroeder said in a press release. “I encourage anyone who chooses to exercise their second amendment rights to do so responsibly.”
The only confrontation between the competing groups appeared to occur earlier on Saturday when members of the white militia and Black Lives Matter activists yelled at each other over the police barricades.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office is leading an investigation into Taylor’s death.
Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was shot dead when police officers broke into her Louisville apartment with a do not touch order during a narcotics investigation. Her house search warrant was related to a suspect who did not live there and no drugs were found.
