Black Lives Matter activists try to bully Louisville store owner, but he doesn't back down: 'Nobody can intimidate me'
Black Lives Matter activists attempted to pressure a store owner into supporting their causes, but the man wasn't about to be bullied into blindly agreeing with them.
An armed man was guarding his store in Louisville on Friday night. He was protecting his business because it was firebombed the night before when riots erupted, which were sparked by the grand jury decision not to charge any of the police officers involved in the Breonna Taylor case with homicide.
Several Black Lives Matter supporters confronted business owner Fadi Faouri, as seen in video taken by Daily Caller field reporter Jorge Ventura.
One of the activists ask Faouri, "Does black lives matter?" The store owner replies, "If you're a good person, I will care about you. If you're a bad person...pffft."
With several other BLM supporters surrounding him and multiple people recording him, the BLM supporter then asks, "Does Breonna Taylor matter?" The business owner replies, "I don't know."
The activist aggressively asks, "What do you mean you don't know?" Another person in the crowd comes forward and asks, "How you don't know if it doesn't matter?"
Faouri defends himself during the tense encounter, "You're trying to intimidate me."
More people in the crowd become agitated with his answer and want him to explain his stance of impartiality on the hot-button topic.
"I'm not playing that game," the gun-toting store owner proclaims.
The crowd grows larger, and people steadily move closer to Faouri.
The store owner declares, "Nobody can intimidate me."
While most of the group walks away, one woman who claims to be a documentary filmmaker confronts Faouri, and tells him the details from the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor. The store owner responds by saying, "That's not my f***ing business."
Not satisfied with the response, she retorts, "It should be your business, because all lives matter, right? You just said, 'All lives matter.' You can say that, but it's the color black that is the issue."
"You have an issue with that, I don't have an issue," Faouri rebuts. "I don't see color."
"I don't care, white or black bulls****, I see you as a human being, that's all that I care about," he says.
"I don't care about white, black, purple, green, whatever the f*** it is," he states. "I don't believe in color."
(Content Warning: Strong language):
Here is the rest of the clip. https://t.co/Hy8SvCuvK4— Jorge Ventura Media (@Jorge Ventura Media)1601088657.0
Buildings, vehicles vandalized on second night of Breonna Taylor protests, but no recorded attacks on citizens or police after two cops were shot Wednesday
Protests in Louisville were less violent Thursday night, calming down significantly from the previous night, during which two Louisville Metropolitan Police Department officers were shot, the Courier Journal reported.
Thursday was the second night since the grand jury decision not to charge any officers for killing Breonna Taylor during a raid on her home in March. One former officer, Brett Hankison, was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment, related to his allegedly shooting recklessly into surrounding apartments — not to the fact that Taylor was shot and killed.
The Courier Journal reported that 24 people were arrested overnight Thursday, down from 127 the night before. Some of the arrests were for unlawful assembly and failure to disperse, and others, including a state representative, Attica Scott, were charged with felony rioting.
Local reports say protesters numbered in the hundreds, mostly marching through the city and chanting. Some protesters reportedly confronted armed militia members who said they had come to the city to protect property, but those confrontations did not escalate into violence.
Police say some businesses and buses were damaged by vandals. Social media videos show some protesters carrying bats and smashing windows. Louisville police indicated that only "several" marchers were involved in the vandalism. One person tossed a flare through a broken window at the library.
After the curfew, protesters took refuge in the First Unitarian Church, where church leaders were allowing people to gather on the property to avoid arrest. While police appeared to line up outside the church for some time, protesters were eventually allowed to leave after police concluded their investigation at the library.
"Contrary to rumors on social media, the LMPD, at no time, was waiting for 'a decision from legal about whether or not they can storm the property,'" an LMPD Facebook post read. "No arrests were made for being on church property. No National Guard was deployed to address these issues. Officers remained at 4th and York in order to secure the area so maintenance could address the library windows that were broken and an arson investigation begun. Once that was complete, police left the area and protestors were given directions on how to leave the church and head home and were able to walk back to their vehicles."
Louisville police declared a state of emergency earlier this week in advance of the attorney general's announcement about charges against the officers, which foreshadowed a decision officials knew protesters would be unhappy with. The windows of some federal buildings had been boarded up, and in-person court hearings were changed to virtual meetings this week for fear of unrest.
Two police officers were shot Wednesday night. Police arrested 26-year-old Larynzo Johnson in connection with the shooting. Both of the officers, Maj. Aubrey Gregory and Officer Robinson Desroches, suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Johnson has been charged with two counts of first-degree assault of a police officer and 14 counts of wanton endangerment of a police officer.
VIDEO: Parked U-Haul truck distributes riot shields, signs, other supplies to BLM protesters in Louisville
Black Lives Matter protesters in Louisville, Kentucky, demonstrating against the outcome of the grand jury investigation into Breonna Taylor's death were caught on video grabbing riot shields, anti-police banners, and other supplies from a parked U-Haul truck Wednesday.
Videos of the unusual incident posted on Twitter show protesters, many dressed in black bloc, charging toward the vehicle and grabbing ready-made banners saying, "Abolish the Police," "Abolition Now," and "Defend Black Lives."
"We got shields over here!" someone can be heard shouting in a video posted by Daily Caller reporter Shelby Talcott.
"I need a long one," another protester says as shields are being passed out in the video posted by independent reporter Brendan Gutenschwager,
A parked U-Haul was waiting for the crowd up the street. It contains supplies such as signs, shields, water etc. I’… https://t.co/kJ4ktRmTSo— Shelby Talcott (@Shelby Talcott)1600884213.0
More of the Uhaul riot shield transport. May be more efficient than the Black Lives Matter Snack Van, higher capaci… https://t.co/tNIqu3aMLc— Brendan Gutenschwager (@Brendan Gutenschwager)1600885725.0
In Gutenschwager's video, a woman inside the U-Haul truck can be seen tossing black masks into the crowd.
What's the background?
Violent riots erupted in downtown Louisville Wednesday following the decision in the Breonna Taylor case, in which one officer was charged with wanton endangerment and two other officers were not charged. Taylor was shot and killed during a drug raid on her home in March.
After the decision, protesters immediately took to the streets, starting small fires and setting off firecrackers. Twitter users reported the crowd continued to grow as the day went on and also noted the presence of armed and unidentified individuals that some referred to as a "militia."
Then later Wednesday night, the Louisville Metro Police Department announced that two officers had been shot and wounded during the protests.
What else?
The suspicious U-Haul "riot shield transport" raises further speculation that the protests in Louisville were planned and perhaps organized and funded by an outside source.
It is not the first time that similarly suspicious activity has been connected to Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Earlier this year, mysterious stashes of bricks were being reported by social media users in several cities around the country as nationwide protests erupted in the wake of George Floyd's death.
Then in some places ravaged by riots, it has been reported that large numbers of individuals arrested for rioting have been from out of state. Specifically, police in Kenosha reported that a whopping 102 of the 175 individuals arrested during riots there had out-of-town addresses.
Louisville police officer goes viral after giving advice to 'armed MAGA militia'
A Louisville, Kentucky, police officer has gone viral in a video of him offering advice to what some social media users refer to as an "armed MAGA militia."
What are the details?
In a video, the unidentified officer can be seen speaking to members of what appears to be a militia group.
The group claimed they were attending a Louisville protest in response to the indictment against former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison connected to the case of the death of Breonna Taylor.
In the video, the officer can be heard telling the group that they should avoid certain areas of Louisville and offered ideas on where the group should stand. He then warned them that if they didn't follow his instructions, they would be arrested.
"If you go down there, if you choose to, there is a grassy area along the north side of the road," the officer says.
"Those people who want to come down today to exercise your Second Amendment rights or your First Amendment rights —"
A female militia member interjected, "We're not protesters. That's not what we're here for, that's why we're sitting over here."
"I'm going to watch over and protect everybody," he continued. "That's all I do, right? Just be prepared later on today. There will be several hundred, several thousand [demonstrators]. ... But don't try to come on Central, and don't try to take that south sidewalk. I don't want any of that kind of stuff to happen, OK?"
The female responded, "We're here for y'all, we're just here on standby. We're not out there in that rally, we don't want to be in that rally, because last time we kinda got shoved, like we were counterprotesters, and that's not what we do."
The officer adds, "I just wanted to make sure you knew that don't try to come to those areas. Anybody that tries to come in there is going to have a problem."
Twitter user Bob the Comrade shared video of the incident on Twitter, captioning it, "#Louisville Police giving armed MAGA militia members directions on where to stand, what to expect, which streets to avoid."
The video has been viewed more than 500,000 times at the time of this reporting.
#Louisville Police giving armed MAGA militia members directions on where to stand, what to expect, which streets to… https://t.co/g9ebSOXG2t— Bobby Boucher Esq. (@Bobby Boucher Esq.)1600893292.0
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