Insecure actor Kendrick Sampson was on the front lines Saturday at a protest in Los Angeles where he was hit by rubber bullets and by police batons, injuring him.
Sampson took to Instagram Live Saturday afternoon to share his thoughts on the protest and to show his injuries, which included a cut to the face along with bruising on his chest, arm and leg.
“They shot me four times already. I already got hurt and I got hit with a baton,” Sampson said.
“Y’all ain’t see no police f-cking White folks [up] when they took guns to the statehouse,” he said, referring to the recent protests over self-isolating due to the novel coronavirus. “Y’all didn’t see police attacking White folks, beating them up with batons, shooting them with rubber bullets when they brought guns to f-cking state houses.”
Protests sprang out across the globe—from Hollywood to Harlem, from London to Berlin—after a White Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin murdered a 46-year-old Black man, George Floyd, in broad daylight as three other responding officers watched on. Although Chavin was charged Friday with third degree murder and manslaughter, protests still raged on.
kendrick sampson is the leader we need rn #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/oZIQqyc6y5
— moi. blm (@ciIIiqn) May 31, 2020
Sampson, who is a racial justice activist and organizer, took to Instagram Live to describe the scene in Los Angeles and, as he said to the nearly 7,000 watching at one point, to show “what these motherf-ckers are actually doing to people.”
“I still got blood all over my shit and I’m in pain, I’m not gon’ lie…I wanna go home, but I’m also like are people seeing what’s actually going on and putting it into actual context?” he continued. “I wonder if I go home will people see that shit.”
“They are an unlawful assembly, look,” he said, before turning the camera to show police officers hitting seemingly peaceful protestors with batons.
Protesters complained about being hit with rubber bullets across the nation yesterday, with one photojournalist and author, Linda Tirado, tweeting that she is now permanently blind in one eye due to being hit by a rubber bullet while covering the Minneapolis protest.
an update: I am permanently blind in my left eye, and the docs absolutely refuse to let me go back to work for they say six weeks. I’m definitely not allowed to be near smoke or gas.Usually if I had to stay home I’d spend a lot of time amplifying folk but reading hurts today
— Linda Tirado (@KillerMartinis) May 30, 2020
“I took a rubber bullet to the face. It exploded my eyeball, which has now been patched back together but who knows if it’ll need more surgery,” she detailed on Saturday.
Shooting rubber bullets to protestors’ faces is a strategy often used in other countries, including Chile where a 22-year-old student named Gustavo Gatica was left totally blind last November after being shot by rubber bullets, according to Reuters.
Show up pic.twitter.com/jl9fkEh4eU
— TINASHE (@Tinashe) May 30, 2020
@JColeNC and @Dennis1SmithJr Downtown Fayetteville NC for protest today pic.twitter.com/MwmGzl1Odb
— Richmond . (@HereCumMimi) May 30, 2020
Sampson, who recently stopped by ESSENCE’s Yes, Girl! podcast, was not the only celebrity to lend their fame to the cause. Tinashe also shared she was protesting in Los Angeles, and J. Cole was spotted at a protest in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Floyd was born.
The post ‘Insecure’ Star Kendrick Sampson Hit By Rubber Bullets At LA Protest appeared first on Essence.
