Three protesters were hit by a vehicle late Wednesday night in St. Louis while marching in honor of Kiwi Herring, a transgender woman who was shot dead by police earlier this week.
However, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, how exactly the driver came to strike the protesters remains unclear because police and a witness are giving two very different stories about what exactly happened when the motorist drove through the group that had blocked an intersection.
Keith Rose, the witness, told the Post-Dispatch that the driver had his middle fingers up before he accelerated through the crowd of protesters blocking the intersection.
St. Louis police, on the other hand, say the driver stopped, honked and attempted to drive around the protesters before some of them began to surround his car and hit the vehicle with their hands and a flagpole.
Police spokesperson Schron Jackson said that three protesters were injured after they jumped onto the car and fell off when the driver pulled away from the scene.
Jackson said the motorist was taken into custody after initially refusing to stop for officers. The protesters suffered only minor injuries, according to officials.
The protest in the street began shortly after a vigil in Herring’s honor that was held at the nearby Transgender Memorial garden, according to Fox2Now.
As the news station reports, Herring was shot and killed by St. Louis police officers Tuesday following a call about someone with a knife. Officers who got to the scene confronted Herring, who was holding a knife and then refused to drop the weapon. Authorities say that she stabbed a neighbor and then turned her knife on an officer who responded to the incident, also injuring him.
Kristy Thompson, Herring’s partner, was charged Wednesday with assault and armed criminal action for her alleged role in the stabbing of the neighbor, who was still in serious condition at the time.
The Post-Dispatch reports that friends and family say that Herring and her partner had felt threatened by neighbors.
Read more at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Fox2Now.