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Video shows BLM activist being knocked down, injured in dispute with Back the Blue group
A dispute that turned physical on a South Hill street corner between law enforcement supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters left one person with a fractured wrist Friday night.
A video of the event was shared on social media and has sparked condemnation.
The injured man, 19-year-old BLM protester Gabriel Phillips, said he was trying to stop a confrontation between another BLM protester and a supporter at a Back the Blue rally meant to show support for police.
Phillips, a 2018 Emerald Ridge High School graduate, is passionate about the BLM movement, which protests racially motivated violence against Black people. Since June 1, he’s been holding signs in support of BLM at the same 176th Street East and Meridian East corner where Friday night’s incident occurred.
He said the first sign he held there read, “Am I next?”
“Within an hour, a couple people came out and joined me and hugged me and thanked me,” he recalled.
Phillips created a Facebook page, BLM South Hill, to spread support.
Friday’s altercation
On Friday, Phillips said, he was holding his BLM protest on the same corner as he usually does, but this time there was a Back the Blue rally nearby, which attracted a number of people.
“It was nothing but peaceful at the beginning,” Phillips said. “I shared a lot of laughs with a lot of people. We had a lot of very respectful conversations about our opinions, which some of them we definitely shared. And some of them, you know, we didn’t.”
Close to 7 p.m., Phillips said he noticed a man he recognized as local real estate agent Tim Tooker having an argument with a BLM activist Phillips did not recognize. Tooker, Phillips said, lives a few doors down from him.
“I went over there to try and break up this altercation because, you know, it wasn’t looking good for the other activist,” Phillips said. Tooker appeared to be the aggressor, Phillips said.
“So, I went over there and gave (Tooker) multiple, multiple ‘Hey, stops,’ to which he did not seem to be hearing,” Phillips recalled.
Phillips and the other activist Tooker was involved with were the only African Americans on the corner, Phillips said.
Then, Phillips said, Tooker, who is white, turned his attention toward him.
“Then I was just slammed to the ground by, you know, Mr. Tooker, and everyone else there,” Phillips said. “That’s pretty much where the video starts.”
A video shot by a passerby, South Hill resident Kayleb Akau, shows Phillips on the ground with Tooker and others standing over him. At one point, Tooker pulls Phillip’s face mask off and throws it in the street, the video shows.
Tooker declined to provide a statement or agree to an interview when contacted by The News Tribune on Monday. On Tuesday, he was elected as Pierce County Republican precinct committee officer.
Akau said he was in a car stopped at a red light when he saw tensions rising on the corner.
“It was verbal but aggressive,” Akau said. He identified the man who tore off Phillip’s mask as the aggressor. He saw Phillips fall to the ground.
“It looked like he was pushed,” Akau said. He started filming the altercation.
“We don’t have a lot of fights in the road,” he said.
Akau posted the video online.
“I had a lot of people share it through social media,” he said.
Fractured wrist
An on-duty Pierce County Sheriff’s Department deputy was across the street gassing up his vehicle at the time of the incident and responded to the fight, according to sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer.
The incident was over when the deputy arrived. Neither party wanted to press charges at the time, Troyer said. No arrests were made.
Later that evening, Phillips went to an urgent care where his arm was X-rayed. His wrist had sustained a fracture, he and his attorney, Jessica Duthie said. It was then that Phillips changed his mind about pressing charges against Tooker.
On Saturday, Phillips went to the Sheriff’s Department to complete a report. Deputies visited him later that day at his residence. The Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said on Tuesday that the incident was reviewed and no charges will be filed.
Phillips said the altercation hasn’t changed his mind on protesting. He’s often insulted while holding his sign.
“There’s definitely been people screaming ‘all lives matter’,” he said. “There’s been people flipping people off. There’s been a lot of ... big diesel trucks driving by, rolling coal on everyone.”
“Rolling coal” refers to the intentional discharge of black exhaust from a diesel truck.
He’ll keep protesting while he works and saves money for school, he said. He wants a career as a pediatric nurse.
“The biggest and most crucial piece to this, the Black Lives Matter movement, is just equality for all,” he said. “I just want everyone to be treated equally and not judged based off the color of their skin.”
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