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What Anaheim Police Officer was driving car #1464833 at 4:30 pm Saturday the 25th through the intersection of Broadway and Harbor, and what was he thinking, when he swerved hard into a peaceful protester, and then sped recklessly away, the wrong way, through the BofA ATM driveway  – in front of at least 50 witnesses and several cameras?  We’ll know soon enough.

Did this officer have a partner with him/her?  (No.) Is it an officer we’re already familiar with from APD’s 41 killings these last 20 years, or some other misbehavior?  We’ll know soon enough.

The young man who was hit, named Tyerae Bailey, was an organizer of the march, and we can happily tell you he survived, but doctors are still assessing the damage the surprise collision gave him.  [UPDATE 11 – diagnosis is “contusions in lower extremities.”]

This was a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest that began at La Palma and marched down Harbor Blvd to the police station.  The marchers took up the street, something the police and some motorists don’t like, but it is a tactic often used to get across the urgency of the issue – police brutality nationwide AND locally, and its disproportionate impact on people of color.  Some people wish these protests would just go away, but they’re not, because the problems have not gone away.

What happened at 4:30 was a huge escalation on the part of the police.  This first film is taken by Tyerae as he got hit:

https://www.facebook.com/100006202953842/videos/pcb.2602608809955859/2602608409955899/

FULLER VERSION OFF INSTAGRAM (if this works on your computer) :

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDMOqSWHnp_/?igshid=jqv01esgwrh2

UPDATE 11:00 AM Monday:

I spoke to the young man who got hit (I hate to use the word “victim.”)  Tyerae Bailey from Huntington Beach (left) now living in Santa Ana.  Since the George Floyd killing he’s participated in numerous protests and marches, from Laguna to LA, in Huntington Beach, Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Tustin, Irvine.  He was at this march as a “peacekeeper.” 

After Tyerae rolled off the cop’s hood, the cop stayed there a few seconds to cuss him out.  (In some kind of twist, the cop was also black.)  And then, sworn to serve and protect, he sped off in what looked like a panic, through a one-way bank ATM driveway THE WRONG WAY, to get away from his apparently intentional hit-and-run.  As the kids say these days, “That’s CRAZY.”

We see people every day on Facebook, people who seem to feel their lives are invaded and endangered by these protests, fantasizing about doing this.  There’s a cartoon meme out there called “All lives splatter.”  James Fields killed a protester this way in Charlottesville, and got life in prison for first-degree murder.  I’ve seen cars plow SLOWLY through crowds at recent OC protests, sometimes those cars got beat up in retaliation.  But watching a cop do this, you wonder … is this what a LOT of cops FEEL like doing to us?

https://www.facebook.com/100006202953842/videos/pcb.2602608809955859/2602608406622566

MUCH MORE TO COME, watch this space!

UPDATE Tuesday

Here is the police’s response video. In their telling, this policeman was helping “escort” the white car across the intersection, didn’t see Ty there, and it was an accident. He then took off because protesters were running after him (with camera phones in their hands.) Do you see any big cuts in this video? Of course you do.

Update Thursday, despite APD’s attempts to sweep this under the rug, the story makes FOX 11:

Looking at this two years later… I never did put up the picture of the reckless cop with the picture of Edgar Hampton.