ALTERCATION TURNS DEADLY AT DEMONSTRATION IN TEXAS
Armed protester killed by shots fired from vehicle
It was not unusual for Garrett Foster to be at a protest against police brutality on a Saturday night. And it was not out of character for him to be armed as he marched.
Foster was carrying an AK-47 rifle as he joined a Black Lives Matter demonstration blocks from the state Capitol in Austin, Texas. Gun-rights supporters on both the left and the right often carry rifles at protests in Texas, a state whose liberal gun laws allow it.
Foster, wearing a black bandana and a baseball cap, bumped into an independent journalist at the march Saturday, and he spoke matterof-factly about the weapon that was draped on a strap in front of him.
“They don’t let us march in the streets anymore, so I got to practice some of our rights,” Foster told the journalist, Hiram Gilberto Garcia, who was broadcasting the interview live on Periscope. “If I use it against the cops, I’m dead,” he conceded.
Later that night, Foster was fatally shot, but not by police. Authorities said he was killed by a motorist who had a confrontation with protesters.
Police and witnesses said the man in the car turned it aggressively toward the marchers, and Foster then approached it. The driver opened fire, shooting Foster three times. He was rushed to a hospital and was later pronounced dead.
Austin’s police chief, Brian Manley, told reporters Sunday that as the motorist turned, a crowd of protesters surrounded the vehicle, and some struck the car. The driver, whose name has not been released, then opened fire from inside the car as Foster approached. Another person in the crowd pulled out a handgun and shot at the vehicle as it sped away.
Minutes after the shooting, the driver called 911 and said he had been involved in a shooting and had driven away from the scene, Manley said. The caller told dispatchers he had shot someone who had approached the driver’s window and pointed a rifle at him.
“His account is that Mr. Foster pointed the weapon directly at him and he fired his handgun at Mr. Foster,” the chief said of the driver.
Both the driver and the other person who fired a weapon were detained and interviewed by detectives. Both had state-issued handgun licenses and have been released as the investigation continues, Manley said.
The shooting stunned a capital city where demonstrations and marches are a proud and commonplace tradition. A Gofundme page to help Foster’s relatives with his funeral expenses had raised nearly $100,000 by Sunday evening.
And while Mayor Steve Adler and other officials expressed their condolences Sunday, at least one police leader criticized Foster.
On Twitter, Kenneth Casaday, president of the Austin police officers’ union, retweeted a video clip of Foster explaining to Garcia, the independent journalist, why he brought his rifle. In the clip, Foster is heard using curse words to talk about “all the people that hate us,” but are too afraid to “stop and actually do anything about it.”
In his tweet, Casaday wrote: “This is the guy that lost his life last night. He was looking for confrontation and he found it.”
Garcia, who has filmed numerous Austin demonstrations in recent weeks, captured the chaotic moments of the shooting live on video. Protesters are seen marching through an intersection when a car blares its horn. Marchers appear to converge around the car as a man calls out, “Everybody back up.” At that instant, five shots ring out, followed shortly by several more loud bangs that echo through the downtown streets.
Foster, who had served in the military, was not seeking out trouble at the march, relatives and witnesses told reporters. At the time of the shooting, Foster was pushing his fiancee through the intersection in her wheelchair.