“The first thing I heard was screaming. The second thing I heard was the engine revving,”: protesters on I-35W defended the driver of the tanker truck that sped into a group of protesters.
News Talk 830 WCCO has a new angle of the truck that drove into protesters on 35W yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Ajqji3XUig
— News Talk 830 WCCO (@wccoradio) June 1, 2020
Miles Kipper was on I-35W taking pictures when a tanker truck sped through the mass of protesters on the bridge. Kipper and other peaceful protestors formed a group around the driver of the truck, 35-year-old Bogdan Vechirko, after he was pulled from the cab of the truck.
Protesters were kneeling and holding a moment of silence for George Floyd when the truck sped towards the group. “The first thing I heard was screaming. The second thing I heard was the engine revving really loudly and the horn blaring,” Kipper said. “It was like zero to 60 real quick, going from such a nice beautiful thing to people scattering for their life.”
After the truck came to a stop, without hitting any protesters, the Vechirko was pulled from the cab of his truck and attacked by protesters on the bridge. Kipper began taking a video of the scene, when he decided to step in and help stop the violence. With his camera in one hand and his skateboard in the other, Kipper ran into the crowd. “I knew he was gonna get beat to death… that’s what all started this. It started with people standing by and watching a man be murdered,” Kipper said.
As Kipper and other people stepped in to defend Vechirko, Kipper says Vechirko curled into a ball behind them and screamed for his life. “My only awareness of where he was were the screams,” Kipper said. “Everybody there thought he had been trying to kill us.”
Kipper and the other people defending Vechirko held their position until the police came and took Vechirko off the bridge.
