Updated: Uber driver says protesters never touched car before passenger exited, threw punch
A fight broke out during an otherwise peaceful protest in Lexington Saturday, as demonstrators took to the streets of downtown for a ninth night of protests calling for more police accountability.
About two and a half hours into the gathering, a small group of people who had been staying on the periphery of the protest blocked traffic near Limestone and Maxwell streets and motioned at nearby cars.
The fight began when a white man got out of an Uber vehicle and confronted protesters at the intersection, throwing a punch at one of the protesters, who is black, according to witnesses, video of the fight and the Uber’s driver. The protester the man tried to hit then hit back and there was a brief scuffle.
Video of the incident shows that other protesters intervened, separated the two and pulled the involved protester away from the man, who followed the protesters, appearing to push one of them, and the fight started up again.
Lexington police Sgt. Andre Grider said a man and his spouse were in a vehicle with an Uber driver before the altercation.
The driver of the Uber, Mohammed Amidu, said he’d stopped at a red light as protesters started to move through the intersection. The protesters were all being peaceful and never touched the car or bothered drivers as they passed, Amidu said.
When the light turned green, Amidu’s male passenger told him to go. Amidu explained he couldn’t, because the protesters were still going through the intersection.
At that point, the male passenger got out in the middle of the intersection and told protesters to move, Amidu said. One of the protesters said “no” and that’s when the passenger took a swing at the protester, Amidu said.
Amidu could not move his car at first because the male passenger’s wife was trying to get out of the car too, he said. When she did get out, Amidu slowly drove forward until he was at a safe distance to close his car doors and park, he said.
Once Amidu was able to park, he went back to where the fight happened and found the male passenger was bloody. He told the man and his wife that he would have to end the Uber trip.
Amidu reported what happened to Uber, and while the investigation continues the app suspended the couple’s account because they could have put the driver in danger, Amidu said.
No protesters ever bothered Amidu, but what happened after the passenger got out of the car was still frightening, he said.
“You don’t know who is who,” Amidu said. “You don’t know what will happen.”
In an interview, Jason Ritter, the male passenger, said he got out of the Uber because he felt threatened.
Ritter said that a protester had cursed at him through the open car window before putting his hands on the hood of the Uber and “shook his head menacingly,” before telling the couple they were “not getting out of here ever.”
Ritter said he felt like he had no choice but to get out of the vehicle at that point and said that he was punched three times before a Herald-Leader video of the incident began. He denies he threw the first punch.
After the fight was broken up initially, Ritter continued “because If you’re going to hit me I’m going to fight, I didn’t start it but I’d finish it,” he said. He said he and his wife had been staying at a hotel downtown. He also said he and his wife feared for their lives before the fight was eventually broken up.
As of Sunday evening, police were still investigating the altercation and had asked for witnesses to call them with any information.
Grider, of Lexington police, said the man and his spouse told police that “they felt threatened by another individual,” so the man got out of the car. Afterward, the man and his wife left the scene and called police. The man who got out of the vehicle sustained minor injuries, Grider said.
One of the protesters involved was Kaulbert William Wilson, 19, who had been arrested after Monday night’s protest in a previous incident.
Sarah Williams, one of the protest organizers, said the man who got out of the vehicle “jumped out of his Uber and began to engage the crowd in a violent manner. He pushed, he got pushed back.”
“We are fighting for our lives, and if you feel like you need to inflict violence on us for fighting for our lives, we will defend ourselves,” she said.
“Because we are focused on knowing that we are here to defend ourselves and peacefully protest, we were able to regain order, peacefully recollect, come back as one collective unit to the courthouse, and we’re still here fighting for justice.”
She said the marchers had “walked through traffic all night without any incident.”
Unlike several previous nights, when officers stood outside police headquarters, Lexington police kept a lower profile during most of Saturday’s protest, closing streets as needed.
Demonstrators chanted and marched through the streets of downtown. They stopped in front of headquarters and the crowd sat in the street while some participants told about encounters they have had with police.
Michael Yeboah, a native of Ghana, said he’s lived in Lexington for three years. Last year, he said an officer deployed a Taser and pepper spray on him at the Lexington Transit Center. He said he was charged with resisting arrest and other charges.
“If an officer tells me I’m under arrest, there’s no way I would have resisted arrest,” he said. “...There are bad people out there.”
They also returned to Cheapside, where they chanted “black lives are priceless.”
Protesters gathered in Richmond and Danville earlier in the day Saturday to speak out against institutional racism and police brutality in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
This story was originally published June 7, 2020 at 1:28 AM.
