Located 37 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, Yorba Linda, California, was the scene for a violent clash on Saturday between the “Caravan4Justice,” a Black Lives Matter supporting group, and Trump supporters. The protest took place after the officers in the Breonna Taylor case were cleared of any wrongdoing, and LA police shot and killed a homeless black man. The authorities later released a video showing the homeless man grabbing for a deputy’s sidearm.
The situation nearly turned deadly when Tatiana Turner, 40, a founder of the Caravan4Justice and a BLM supporter, allegedly drove her car into the pro-Trump counter-protesters, seriously injuring a man and a woman. Turner is now facing possible attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon charges.
The BLM protestors marched along the Imperial Highway, while the pro-Trump counter-protesters were on the other side of the road. Strung out along the route were 200 police officers to keep the two sides separated. The situation turned violent when some counter-protesters crossed the six-lane highway and confronted the BLM group.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department declared an unlawful assembly when the confrontation escalated into fights and reports of people carrying weapons emerged. The crowd, estimated at around 250 people, ignored the dispersal order, and the mayhem escalated with one person pepper-spraying another and one man arrested for disobeying the order to leave.
The official Orange County Sheriff’s Department news release stated:
At approximately 3 p.m. after several dispersal orders, a vehicle in the parking lot of the Yorba Linda Public Library at 18181 Imperial Highway struck at least two individuals. The driver, believed to be part of the Caravan for Justice, continued to leave the parking lot and was detained a short distance away from the incident. The two people struck, a man and a woman believed to be at the protest, were transported to a nearby hospital with major injuries but are expected to survive.
The driver, Tatiana Turner, 40, of Long Beach, was arrested. She will be booked into the Orange County Jail for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and the investigation is ongoing.
A video of Turner shows a crowd of people standing around her car; she then accelerated into the crowd as she moves forward. She stopped her vehicle, then lurched forward and accelerated ahead again as people jumped out of her way and her rear window shattered as she drove away. More than a dozen people follow her car, hitting it with flag poles, and police pursued Turner and took her into custody.
According to the New York Post, Turner is being held on a $1 million bail and will appear in court Tuesday.
According to event organizer Anthony Bryson, an angry mob had surrounded Turner’s car and wouldn’t let her drive away: “People had broken her windshield, she was trying to leave. She was in fear for her life.”
Turner’s lawyer, Ludlow Creary II, told the Associated Press:
Tatiana Turner called 911 when a hostile group of counter-protesters surrounded her — some with firearms — during the “Caravan for Justice” protest.
She appealed to deputies at the scene — and only drove off after she “got the runaround,” and her pleas for help were ignored.
Sheriff’s deputies on the scene didn’t do anything, and the crowd of Trump supporters grew, it essentially was a hostile environment.
Sheriff’s department spokeswoman Carrie Braun, however, said deputies did not think Turner was in danger when she accelerated into the crowd of people.
“It did not appear from the video we’ve been able to see that there was a direct threat.”
Sergeant Dennis Breckner of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Turner deliberately drove through the crowd:
When she left that parking lot, she could have chosen an alternate route that would have completely avoided all those people. She chose that route. It wasn’t like that was her only avenue of escape, and she didn’t have to leave at that moment; she could have just stayed in her car.
From what we can tell, there seemed to be no issues when she was getting into her car.
Ultimately it will be up to the Orange County authorities whether or not Turner will face charges. Still, the growing anger against the protests and the increased willingness to resort to violence is creating instability in this country not seen since before the Civil War.
