On July 25th, 2020, at a protest called by the Frontline Party for Revolutionary Action, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Aurora Copwatch, about 3000 Black Lives Matter protesters marched on I-225 in Aurora, Colorado to demand justice for Elijah McClain, who had been tortured and murdered by Aurora Police and paramedics about a year prior. Many members of the signatories to this statement participated in the protest.

Kyle Faulkison attacked the march by driving his jeep through the crowd at speeds of over 50 mph. Before Faulkison reached the march, two people attempted to prevent his attack with their vehicles. Faulkison first swerved around a motorcycle that a protester had used to block an on-ramp. Then, as Faulkison accelerated toward the back of the march, another person steered their pickup truck into Faulkison’s jeep. The collision did not deter Faulkison, but alerted protesters of his approach.

The last person who attempted to stop Faulkison was Samuel Young, a 23-year-old Black Lives Matter protester, who fired at the jeep with his handgun. Two of his shots struck the jeep and two inadvertently struck fellow protesters, grazing one in the temple and hitting another in the leg.

Faulkison did not end up directly harming anyone with his jeep, whether or not Young’s attempt to defend himself and the march was the deciding factor. However, multiple protesters were hurt in the act of escaping the attack. As protesters scrambled out of the jeep’s path, some jumped over barriers on the side of the highway. A member of the Denver Communists helped rescue one such person, lifting them back onto the highway to prevent a long fall. Another fell 20 feet off the side of the highway and broke their leg.

Aurora Police intercepted Faulkison when he exited the highway. Instead of arresting him, police escorted him away from the scene in a police cruiser. Faulkison was never issued so much as a traffic citation, let alone was he charged with any crime.

Young turned himself in to police the next day. He was initially charged with four counts of attempted first-degree murder. His charges have since been reduced to four counts of attempted reckless manslaughter, two assault charges, and a weapons charge. Young is depending on a public defender to defend him. His trial begins on Tuesday, March 22, 2022.

“Given his vantage point, the role that he believed he was playing, and his observations, I do think that a jury could pretty credibly find that this guy thought he was doing what he was to protect people.” This is what George Brauchler, who was the Arapahoe County District Attorney at the time, said of the driver of the pickup truck who tried to stop Faulkison. The same can be said of Samuel Young: he acted in self-defense and in defense of the people in the path of Faulkison’s jeep.

The state’s double standards come as no surprise to us. In any confrontation between liberatory social movements and vigilantes who violently oppose them, the approach of the cops and courts is to enable and protect the vigilantes and to join in on the brutalization of the movement activists. They make the criminal appear to be the victim and the victim appear to be the criminal. It’s easy to see why: vigilante violence aligns with the state’s priority of suppressing combative, system-challenging social movements.

Cars have become weapons in the hands of opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement. During the first two months of the George Floyd Rebellion, Ari Weil, a terrorism researcher at the University of Chicago, counted at least 50 vehicle-ramming attacks. “The use of car attacks against peaceful protesters is increasingly a deliberate terror tactic for white supremacists,” according to Amy Spitalnick of Integrity First for America, a civil rights organization that represented the victims of the 2017 Charlottesville vehicle-ramming attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others. “I want to caution that this isn't just a far-right, neo-Nazi thing, but it's becoming something that's encouraged broadly, and I think that should worry everyone,” Weil said.

In the year following George Floyd’s murder, a wave of anti-protest laws swept the country, including 18 bills introduced in 11 states that reduced or eliminated the liability of drivers who run into protesters. As the Boston Globe reported, “Given the choice between defending the safety of pedestrians protesting a police murder and the drivers of the vehicles running them down, prosecutors and lawmakers here have reserved their concern for the drivers.” Oklahoma and Iowa criminalized the blocking of public streets and granted immunity to drivers who hit protesters. Florida went further, granting a new defense in civil lawsuits for not only drivers, but anyone who commits violence against protesters “acting in furtherance of a riot.” The Florida bill drew international condemnation by the United Nations and its passage unsurprisingly coincided with a rise in vigilante violence.

The state wants oppositional social movements to be defenseless against the police and their volunteer helpers, right-wing vigilantes. In our organizing experience, we’ve seen police illegally confiscate bike helmets, gas masks, and other protective gear from anti-racist protesters, while fraternizing with fascist militia-types and ignoring their weapons. When leftists dare to defend themselves, the consequences are severe. In Portland in 2020, for defending himself from a member of the far-right violent extremist group Patriot Prayer, Michael Reinoehl was executed in the street by federal agents. Then-president Trump admitted it was an act of “retribution.” The same can be said for the overzealous prosecution of Samuel Young.

Activists cannot rely on the cops, courts, or elected officials to protect us. At the same time, we must caution individual activists against bringing weapons to demonstrations. They can expose the movement to state repression, provide a pretext for police and vigilante violence, and alienate people who might otherwise contribute to the building of the mass movement that is needed to confront the racist state and its far-right lackeys. Ultimately, we need to defend our movements, marches, and meetings using tactics that are organized and decided, as much as possible, on a collective basis.

Drop the charges against Samuel Young! Self-defense is not a crime!
Stop state repression of Black Lives Matter activists!
Stop enabling vigilante violence against Black Lives Matter activists!
Justice for Elijah McClain!

Signed,

Denver Communists
Frontline Party for Revolutionary Action
Young Communist League of Colorado
Native Lives Matter
We The People 303
Anon Resistance Movement
Food Not Bombs Denver
Front Range Mutual Aid Network
Front Range Community Defense Collective
Anti-Repression Colorado
Denver Action Network
National Lawyers Guild of Colorado
Wake Up Boulder