Teen charged with driving into Memphis protest, hitting four

MEMPHIS — An 18-year-old motorist has been charged in Tennessee with recklessly driving into a group of demonstrators who were protesting police brutality, striking four, authorities said.

During a street protest in the Midtown neighborhood of Memphis on Friday, slowly drove his Chevrolet Tahoe into a line of protesters “and continued to move forward, pushing through the four demonstrators,” according to a police affidavit filed in Shelby County Criminal Court.

A woman was carried 20 feet as she hung onto the driver’s side mirror, police said. She was treated at a hospital for bruises on her left arm and left leg.

Marcuzzo, of the Memphis suburb of Germantown, remained on the scene but was released. Police reviewed surveillance video and charged Marcuzzo on Saturday with reckless endangerment and reckless driving. They did not say if Marcuzzo intended to hit protesters.

Online court records do not show if Marcuzzo has a lawyer to speak on his behalf about the charges. He has been released from custody on his own recognizance.

Enormous crowds of protesters have been marching through the streets of major cities across the country, including Memphis, to decry the death of George Floyd last month in Minneapolis.

At a memorial for Floyd on Monday in downtown Memphis, mourners observed a moment of silence for 2 minutes and 53 seconds — the amount of time Floyd was nonresponsive while a white police officer held his knee to Floyd’s neck.

Nikolas Dalton, 17, a 2020 high school graduate who spoke at the memorial, said he thought about his and his family’s safety during the moment of silence.

“I was just thinking about, ‘Am I next?” said Dalton, who is black. “I pray to God that I’m not.”

Dalton will attend the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in the fall. He was accompanied in speaking at the memorial by city, county and community leaders.

During an invocation, pastor and activist Earle Fisher called out Floyd’s name and those of other black people who have died in confrontations with police, including Breonna Taylor. Taylor was fatally shot in March by narcotics detectives serving a warrant at her home in Louisville, Kentucky. No drugs were found in the house.