BLM protesters confront gun-toting storeowner in Louisville as they press him to voice his support

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A group of Black Lives Matter protesters were filmed in a tense confrontation with a Louisville storeowner after they demanded he say if he supports the movement during a third night of Breonna Taylor demonstrations in the city.  

Footage of the incident, shared on Twitter by a reporter for conservative news site Daily Caller, shows a small crowd of BLM activists grilling business owner Fadi Faouri, as he stands outside his store holding a rifle. 

During the encounter, the group is seen ganging up on Faouri for several minutes as they challenge his views on the BLM movement and the police shooting of Breonna Taylor after he refuses to say he supports the cause.  

The exchange kicks off after a man asks Faouri, ‘do black lives matter?’ to which he replies: ‘If you’re a good person I will care about you, if you’re a bad person….’ before shrugging.

The man then asks him if ‘Breonna Taylor matters’. Faouri hesitates for a few seconds before responding: ‘Does it matter? I don’t know.’

The conversation starts to get tense after a woman comes into frame questioning his response and more members of the crowd start urging Faouri to explain what he means.  

‘Are you trying to intimidate me? I’m not playing that game,’ Faouri says, as he explains that he is trying to protect his business. 

An argument then ensues as the group starts to close in on the store owner and continue to demand he say whether or not he believes in their cause.  

Faouri turns his attention to the initial male protester telling him he will not be forced to say anything he doesn’t believe. ‘Nobody can intimidate me,’ he says. 

The two parties continue to argue for several seconds but Faouri remains defiant in his refusal to engage in their debate and the protesters eventually disperse, with the exception of one woman claiming to be a documentary filmmaker. 

The woman approaches Faouri and criticizes him for his stance, or lackthereof, as she lectures him over the injustice surrounding Breonna Taylor’s death.  

‘That’s not my f**king business!’ Faouri replies.

 

‘It should be your business because all lives matter right?’ the woman says, as she starts to debate Faouri on racial disparities. ‘You can say that, but it’s the color black that is the issue,’ she adds.  

‘You have an issue with that, I don’t have an issue,’ Faouri says in response. ‘I don’t care, white or black bulls***t, I see you as a human being, that’s all that I care about.’   

The debate finally comes to an end after a fellow protester urges the woman to leave the area. 

According to the Daily Caller journalist, a building Faouri had been leasing was reportedly destroyed after it was ‘firebombed’ during Friday night’s protests, although it is unclear if it was the same business.

Protests continue to rock the city and other areas of across the country after a grand jury refused to charge Louisville police officers with Breonna Taylor’s murder.    

Violent clashes have broken out between police officers and demonstrators over the last week, as some activists have taken to the streets to target businesses and cause chaos. 

On Friday, footage emerged of a police officer with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office using his riot shield to slam a BLM protester who was already lying on the ground. The footage showed  the deputy forcefully using their riot shield to subdue a protester. 

The incident took place in West Hollywood area of the city which saw more than 100 protesters gathered on Friday evening as they marched along Santa Monica Boulevard.     

Meanwhile, across the other side of the country, hundreds of Black Lives Matter staged a ‘sit-in’ on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. 

Hundreds of angry demonstrators marched through from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn to the Brooklyn Bridge where they sat and refused to move for more than hour. 

And in Oakland, California, police said more than 250 protesters became ‘immediately violent’ and threw bottles and cans at officers in the downtown area.

Cops deployed smoke to counter the demonstrators, and a downtown Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station was closed. 

Friday’s rally was held in solidarity with protests taking place in Louisville, where large demonstrations are planned for the weekend. 

Several other demonstrations took place around the rest of the country including Boston and San Diego to protest a grand jury’s decision not to charge the Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in the death of Breonna Taylor. 

‘This is extremely traumatizing. I have been out here since June, almost every day on the streets, marching for my Black life to show people that I matter, that it could be me, it could be him, it could be him, it could be any Black face that you see in this crowd,’ protester Sophie Michel said to CBS2. 

‘I think we need to send a message that it’s unacceptable that no one was charged with Breonna Taylor’s death,’ said John Donahue to PIX11. 

Demonstrators have gathered across the country to express their anger after it was announced on Wednesday that the officers who shot the black woman in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment during a drug raid last March wouldn’t be charged with her death.

Taylor, an emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times by white officers in Louisville who entered her home during a narcotics investigation in March.  

‘I’m angry because this nation is learning that our Black women are dying at the hands of police officers,’ said Bianca Austin, ‘and this is not okay.’ 

‘I was reassured Wednesday of why I have no faith in the legal system, in the police, in the law that are not made to protect us Black and brown people,’ Austin read. 

In Kentucky on Friday, a crowd surrounded Breonna Taylor’s family. Her aunt, Bianca Austin, wore Taylor’s emergency medical technician jacket while reading a message from Taylor’s mother, who was too distraught to speak. 

In Boston, demonstrators gathered in Nubian Square to at part of the nationwide protests. 

The protest remained peaceful as they marched to the Boston Police Headquarters later in the night. The group then moved onto City Hall Plaza for a sit-in.  

The gathering appeared to be among the larger groups the city of Boston has seen in some time. 

Some carried signs with messages such as ‘Justice 4 Breonna,’ ‘Black Lives Matter,’ and ‘Let Black women dream.’ 

The demonstration was largely peaceful with no arrests had been reported as of 10:45pm.

‘I feel like that message being sent that cops can do whatever they want and not be held accountable so this is just an attempt to reenergize the city and reenergize anyone that sees this to get back out on the streets to fight and increase the antiracist movement because this is not ok,’ organizer Ernest Jacques Jr. said to WHDH.

The mayor of Boston Marty Walsh urged calm and asked demonstrators to respect the city ahead of the protest.   

‘I’m asking people planning to demonstrate in Boston tonight and over the weekend to respect the city and respect each other,’ he said. ‘I’m asking you to keep it peaceful, I’m asking you to keep it powerful. People are deeply upset, but we cannot turn to violence to express our pain.’

‘We want to maintain law and order and at the same time protect everyone’s ability to peacefully assembler and make their voices heard. So in case, there is a need for us we’re a little bit closer than we were perhaps in May,’ Lt. Colonel Bryan Pillai said. 

‘Start charging police officers for murder. You in your house sleeping, you ain’t safe. Usually the rebuttal is don’t fight the police, cooperate. How the hell do you do that sleeping?’ community activist Monica Cannon-Grant said to NBC Boston.  

On the west coast, protesters returned to the streets of Hollywood on Friday evening just a day after at least one person was injured as two separate vehicles rammed through crowds demanding racial justice.

At 6pm on Friday evening, a group of about 75 demonstrators walked down Santa Monica Boulevard.

The group swelled to more than 100 people as the march made its way toward The Grove shopping mall.

In San Diego, demonstrators took to the streets of downtown to protest the grand jury’s decision not to indict police officers on criminal charges directly related to Breonna Taylor’s death.

A group of about 40 to 50 demonstrators were organizing in front of the superior court in downtown at around 7:30pm San Diego Police said.

The group then started marching on downtown streets chanting, ‘No Justice, No Peace,’ and chanting Breonna Taylor’s name.

In Albuquerqu, a car drove into a group of protesters near the University of New Mexico campus. 

Nobody appeared to be hurt and police have not said whether the driver was arrested.

Protesters claim the driver was disparaging them before driving through the crowd.

‘It’s sad that we have to come out here and fear for our safety by the citizens of our state. We’re supposed to be better than that. We’re supposed to be loving one another, and people are out here basically trying to kill people,’ an organizer of the protest said to KOB.

In Louisville, the city’s police chief is urging armed militia to stay away from this weekend’s protest.

‘Many of them say they are coming to help us. Let me be clear, that is not help we need. That is not help we want,’ said Rob Schroeder, interim police chief of the LMPD. 

‘America at large will not stand by and allow a Black woman to be murdered and have no consequences,’ protester Kimberly Bernard said.

When asked if he would release the grand jury’s report and transcript, the Kentucky Attorney General said he would revisit the question after the FBI finishes its independent investigation.