A man who actively participated in the Louisville protests for the past month is being accused of killing a photographer, after getting into an altercation with a third person in Jefferson Square Park on Saturday.
23-year-old Steven Nelson Lopez faces charges of murder and first-degree nonsense danger for allegedly shooting 27-year-old Tyler Charles Gerth, according to an arrest warrant obtained by Fox News from the Louisville Metro Police Department. .
Gerth died of a gunshot wound that night, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office said. López was also injured during the incident and remained in police custody at the hospital after the shooting.
Louisville Deputy Police Chief Robert Schroeder previously told Fox News that Lopez “had been participating in the protest since it started and had been arrested a couple of times in the past few weeks. Other members of the park had repeatedly asked him that he left because of his disruptive behavior. “
Schroeder added: “In addition to this man, several people in the park were armed at the time of the incident, and our homicide investigators are still working to identify all the parties who may have shot during the incident.”
THE LOUISVILLE POLICE: THE MAN MURDERED BY THE OFFICES HAD FIRST DISMISSED, SURVEILLANCE VIDEOS
According to the quote, LMPD officials alerted MetroSafe to multiple shots fired around 9 p.m. Saturday. Authorities found that Gerth was not responding and shot him in the face. Multiple witnesses then identified López as the author.
López was shot in the leg when passers-by, who feared for their lives, responded to the fire after he started shooting. The injury was not fatal, according to police.
Maxwell Mitchell, a protester broadcasting live public demonstrations, captured Lopez on video by firing two shots into the air before aiming his gun at the crowd, The Courier-Journal reported.
“I do not think so [Lopez] I was targeting the man who hit, ”Mitchell said.
López was one of 17 protesters arrested on June 17 and accused of inciting riots, disorderly conduct, harassment, and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to The Journal. He was also reportedly in possession of a pistol with two full ammunition chargers when he was arrested.
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Louisville metro police did not comment further when asked about the charges against López.
Fox News’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
