Sunday afternoon I saw the headline on my phone: “RAW VIDEO: Truck Drives Through Protesters On I-35W In Minneapolis”
Freeway shutdown? A truck driving through a crowd?
The traffic cam video showed what happened: A large group of protesters covered both sides of the freeway bridge. After a few moments, those on the southbound side swiftly parted down the middle as a semi-truck entered from the bottom of the screen.
The truck slowed abruptly, right in the middle of the crowd, appearing to stop short of striking anyone. As soon as it stopped, the crowd swarmed.
I’d learn the driver was then yanked from the cab, beaten, and robbed. Police came and got him away and to the hospital—and placed him under arrest.
Headlines for the story read:
“Tanker truck barrels down on protesters marching on I-35W” – StarTribune
“Tanker Truck Speeds Into Minneapolis George Floyd Protest” – msn.com
The exaggeration continued on Twitter, where a “lead national correspondent” for CBS This Morning wrote – “BREAKING: Tanker truck plows into crowd of demonstrators on Minneapolis highway.”
For many others on Twitter, exaggeration of facts led to a radical conclusion: This man was a terrorist who ran right through the road closures. Thousands of users liked and shared the driver's fresh mugshot, his nose freshly bloodied from the attack.
The following day, Minnesota’s Governor Walz held a press conference addressing the incident. First, he expressed his relief no one was hurt. Then he offered the first indications from an official that this may not have been an intentional act. Investigators found the driver was simply working and was ahead of the road closures.
One day later, this “terrorist” who “barreled” his truck into the protesters was released without charge. His name is Bogdan, an immigrant from Russia with a wife eight months pregnant. Following his detainment, she released a video asking for help. Their bank accounts were frozen due to Bogdan being robbed and his truck cabin looted.
Several on social media expressed dismay he was released. I suspect because political leanings sway one’s ideals of justice. But this incident reveals a sway broader than any one political leaning. It reveals an almost society-wide sway, seen by how official outlets interpreted this incident from the get-go. Soon after it happened, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety stated: “Very disturbing actions by a truck driver on I-35W, inciting a crowd of peaceful demonstrators.”
In that same press conference, the governor described how “peaceful protesters in Minneapolis and St. Paul protected this person [from those who were beating him].”
Several other people and outlets would similarly make sure to describe the crowd—estimated between 5000-6000—as peaceful. I’m guessing this was done to distinguish this group from rioters. Yet many of these protesters swarmed, climbed upon, punched, kicked, and threw a bike at the truck. And soon after, they did much the same to the driver. That many of the protesters protected him doesn’t negate the fact that many others tried to murder him. See the video, and then juxtapose this action with the word “peaceful”.
And we haven't even gotten to the question of whether blocking freeway traffic illegally can logically be considered "peaceful". It doesn't mean they're wrong or bad, but it is an act of disruption.
Yet the main concern isn't the protesters. It's in not perceiving reality correctly—or perhaps not being able to convey it accurately because of social pressure.
Overall, I don’t suspect a politically nefarious motivation behind these inaccurate descriptions. At that news conference, the governor actually used a right-leaning talking point when describing this event. He compared Bogdan to the famous case of Reginald Denny, whose truck was caught up in the middle of the 1992 LA riots. Denny was pulled out of his cab and beaten unconscious with a hammer and cinder block. He suffered 91 skull fractures, yet somehow lived.
Bogdan was more fortunate.
That the governor cited the Denny story shows political tribalism wasn't getting in the way of acknowledging the concerns shared by his critics, who dislike the governor and similar politicians’ general permissiveness toward today’s riots. I believe the governor is a good man. He’s just caught up in this "sway" now deeply affecting the country—an unwritten, almost black and white social code granting incredible generosity and leniency toward those taking up an established good cause.
The result of this unquestioning obedience to this code—which includes outspoken charities, politicians, and celebrities financially supporting riots—has been immeasurable numbers of innocent lives harmed (including several murdered). Meanwhile, race relations—THE target issue in all this—has been damaged. I've seen so many videos of interracial conflicts and blatant racist speech between practically every combination of ethnicities at odds during these riots.
All of this unrest will hit the poorest communities the hardest.
This sway is warping fundamental aspects of perception: government declarations, media reports, celebrity endorsements. When commenting on this freeway cam footage, one local WCCO reporter described the protesters, as they swarmed to attack Bogdan’s truck, as “brave people attempting to slow it down”. You can see it here:
This reporter’s accompanying tweet: “Horrifying traffic cam video of a semi truck going full speed through crowds of protesters on the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.”
One user challenged the description by responding to the reporter: “Isn't it a stretch to say the truck went through crowds of protesters when no one even got hit?”
The reporter replied by saying, “…find some humanity.”
There are several social sways within U.S. at any given time, pulling individuals and groups into all kinds of directions. But right now, this one, over-arching sway is affecting the broadest influencers and determiners of how our truth is perceived. It has become glaringly obvious in this whole George Floyd saga, and it was apparent in this one, single incident this week, where scores of angry protesters pulled a man from his truck and beat him—and then were emphasized as “peaceful”.
You need to stay vigilant, so that this sway doesn’t steer your perception. Second guess sensational headlines. Be conscious of those moments it feels like individuals are pressured to say things they really don’t mean—while others are being led to believe things that simply aren’t real.
It’s vital to steer clear. So many official and “above board” leaders and outlets today seem affected, and this affect is magnified right when society needs them the most. In such dire times, strong, clearheaded individuals are more needed than ever to step up.
Excellent post and quite a shocking story. How people can act like this towards what seems to be an innocent man is just mind-boggling, not to mention quite ironic due to the nature of the protest. My suspicious self always seems to edge towards the possibility these protesters are being compromised by agents intent on creating chaos.
Thanks.
The protesters are who they are: They're angry people and took it out on the driver. The unrestrained violence is shocking, but we've seen this before. What is unique, is how the media bent over backwards to defend them. This is new level ominous.
Funny you should say that, because https://www.ukcolumn.org/ mentioned the exact same thing going on in UK press. An example was when a mounted officer had a bike thrown at her and fell from her horse. She broke a load of bones and the horse bolted into the crowd. The way this was reported made no mention to how the rioter caused it to happen and instead the headline focused on how the police "charged" at the crowd. Here is a link to the report if you want to take a quick look.
Wow. The blatant lack of integrity is disheartening.
You're not taking into account fog [of war, but not war]. Imagine you're walking down the freeway. Nothing I would do and not my preferred form of protest by the way, but it undeniably works. From behind you, you hear screams and might catch a glimpse of people running in a panic before you find yourself running in a panic, not sure where to run so you don't get run over by this semi truck coming at you. You don't have freeway cameras providing you an elevated view, you don't have the benefit of hindsight, you just see a truck entering your crowd of protestors.
You don't know what's happened but it's reasonable to quickly come to a conclusion that the driver may have driving been the truck as a weapon, given some cases in the last decade. If that's so, I think it's also reasonable in the moment to disarm that driver from his weapon.
Some went beyond that and began to beat him out of anger or revenge. That was too far. In the context and emotional charge of the protests and riots, it's not a surprise it happened. For some of them more directly in the path of the truck, surely a fight or flight response was active.
Now with the benefit of video footage and hindsight, obviously the guy should have been left unharmed. The Facebook streamer Justin Goeman was a damn hero in that circumstance for having the presence of mind to do all he could to get the crowd to leave him unharmed. I hope to buy him a beer some day. But if you were on the ground in that crowd, in the fog, in the path of that truck and charged up with anger and frustration, would you have been able to resist the primal reaction? If your peaceful protest was put upon by perceived violence, on a very basic level isn't it natural to return it?
The point of this comment is not to exonerate those who beat the driver but to try to empathize with the crowd's point of view at that moment. I personally did not see malice in his actions, but that was with the benefit of a video taken from an elevated position, and an aggregated description of the event.
I'm not sure you can exonerate the crowd that easily. I need to find a longer video of the trucks approach to be sure of this but from the description within this post and the pictures provided it seems the crowd was very aware of the trucks approach and even cleared a path for it. I understand what you're getting at and if it happened like you think then I guess you would act in a fight or flight way. Thing is, it doesn't look like that's what happened here and the driver was released without charge, which also suggest he didn't cause any harm. I think it needs taking into consideration that some people who go to protests are looking for trouble.
from what i seen, not sure why he ended up on that road, but he saved few lives and doing so risked to be killed. and would be for sure if there were no those few that defended him.
His reaction in that last moment to go left and not run over guy on the ground was really good, also he had an opportunity after the stop to continue full throttle but he was moving slow enough to not hurt anyone.
i do understand what @pfunk is saying but there was a chance that he could be killed because he did not want to run over anyone. also after this i seen posts of truckers where they say they will not try to stop in this kind of situations, because they don't want to die.
Just been watching the full vids and I'm even more confused. In one it shows the truck speeding towards them and then stop(all within a few seconds) and in another it shows him driving at a slow pace until he gets surrounded...Wondering whether one video has been sped up to make it look as if he drove at them? If he did drive at them at high speed then I can understand why the crowd freaked out.
from what i understood it is a bridge so there is a slight slope and a small curve. so he was going full speed and probably when he seen them started to break and used the horn. for sure if he wanted to run anyone over he could just turn left or right and kill a lot of them. the slow moving video was after the initial stop, when they tried to get him out of the truck, so he started moving for maybe 50m at slow pace, probably thinking they will give up. looks like at one moment there were 7-8 people hanging on the truck so he just stopped to not run over someone, because there was no other reason for him to stop again.
no idea why he was on that road, but for sure did not want to kill anybody.
And stopping a tanker filled with fluid is certainly not straight forward. Crazy how two different videos can give such contrasting perspectives. Very lucky nobody was badly hurt. We have a protest going on in our local city center today and I'm hoping that doesn't kick off. Maybe I should take my drone and film it...
Seems this event has taken hold of everyone. I guess we'll be on to the next drama soon enough.
I think what happened was the sudden approach, stop, swarm. And then they must have let up, allowing him to creep along? If not this, then I'm with you with being confused about that.
Thanks, @pfunk. I appreciate that point. I could've tried to add something in the piece about this element. You're right. The sudden appearance of the truck was be alarming to say the least. And if I'm in their shoes and suspect a threat, I would definitely react as well--though I'd like to think I'd react differently. The several who swarmed the truck saw red and didn't let up until others intervened. I believe they would've killed the guy if they weren't stopped. All that said, my main concern wasn't the protesters. They were who they were, and that truck was a like walking into a hornet's nest. The main issue is how the media defended them and contorted the situation to do so. That what gave me the willies.
Some of them didn't let up until the police arrived. But you can't cast a shadow on a whole, ad hoc group for the actions of some of the people among them, especially given the circumstances.
True, but you certainly can't call them peaceful any longer, either. But that's what media did.