The car becomes the weapon
TULSA, Okla. — On May 31, 2020, six days after the murder of George Floyd, a welding inspector named Thomas Ryan Knight went to his first protest, a Black Lives Matter demonstration.
It was hot but clear as he and his girlfriend joined the crowd, which marched through a part of the city that was the site of a racist massacre a century ago, and followed it onto Interstate-244 West, grinding traffic in all three lanes to a halt on the overpass of a highway that long ago cleaved this historic Black neighborhood in two.
In Iowa and elsewhere, Republicans push bills granting some legal immunity to motorists who hit protesters.
Pictured above: A protester stood in front of a pickup truck hauling a trailer. Protesters blocked I-244 westbound during a protest of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and a commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in 2020. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World/file)
Knight, a wry father of five who goes by Ryan and has the seal of the Choctaw nation tattooed on his right wrist, wanted to show his support for Black Americans, to be one more body in the sea of millions taking to the streets across the country to protest racism and police brutality.
But once he got up to the highway, Knight didn’t feel comfortable, decided it was time to go, and made his way toward the shoulder.
That’s where his memory ends.
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2021/10/vehicle-rammings-against-protesters/tulsa/
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