Vehicle “Protest” Encounters: Politics, Legal Jeopardy, Defense

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- In the seeming never-ending riots portrayed as “peaceful protests” by the Progressive left, including most of the Media, there are an increasing number of drivers/passengers involved in vehicle encounters with agitators/protestors.

There are numerous responses on Internet forums about how to handle a situation where a person or persons in a vehicle encounter, often unexpectedly, agitators/protestors who are aggressively blocking a public right of way.

Many of these responses are very dangerous. It seems to be precisely what is desired by the Progressive left, such as Antifa and BLM, their organizers, handlers, and political theorists.

This article explains some of the dynamics observed from the reporting of these events, and a framework of how to respond with the least risk to the driver/passenger(s) involved.

The design of many of these events is to deliberately block public right-of-ways, to inconvenience large numbers of the public, and to show the public the participants can break the law with impunity.

Part of the design is to trap drivers/passengers and provoke a violent response to further the Antifa/BLM agenda.

In nearly all of these events, the local government, which may include the local prosecutor, mayor, and or city council, are complicit, sympathetic, or compromised on the side of those organizing the event and the violence.

Those who create these events, or to be charitable, hi-jack them and take advantage of them, want confrontation, violence, destruction, and death. They want to frame the confrontation, violence, destruction, and death as being caused by “racists and or white supremacists”, which is newspeak for enemies of the party, with “the party” being the Progressive far-left as exemplified by the furthest left thinkers, planners and organizers.

Their definition of an enemy of the party is anyone who is not actively submitting to them, and doing what they order, to further their goals. Do not be deceived. The vast majority of people in the country are considered “the enemy”.

When a vehicle approaches a highway, street, interstate, road or intersection blocked by “protestors” or agitators, the common tactic, instead of opening a way for the vehicle to traverse the right of way, is to block the vehicle, surround it, beat or pound on it with hands or whatever is available, to throw water bottles, or other objects at the vehicle, to place a bicycle or scooter on its side in front of the vehicle, to swarm or surround the vehicle to prevent a safe retreat, and to demand a window be rolled down, or the door opened. The purpose is to intimidate and frighten, to stop the vehicle, to induce fear, to elicit a panic response.

The template for these events, from the view of the agitator, organizes, in Charlottesville, where a young, mentally troubled NAZI sympathizer, James Alex Fields, drove into a crowd of protestors/agitators who blocked the right of way, injuring many and killing one.

The protest was legal, but a key barricade had been removed, which is how Fields happened onto the situation with the protestors in the street, blocking his passage. There is evidence he was lost, but driving into the crowd appears to have been intentional. Fields was convicted and will likely be in prison for life.

There were protestors/agitators from both the Nationalist Left (neo-NAZI/white supremacists) and the Internationalist Left (Antifa/BLM) at Charlottesville. Both sides of the Leftist coin were violent. The local government trended to the left and has been blamed for not keeping the peace.

The two sides of the left see each other as enemies. A great many people at the protest were not with either of the extremist factions. Fields claimed self-defense. He later plead guilty, with his lawyers describing the attack as an “impulsive, angry, and aggressive decision.” His ability to back up to escape, his Internet and other communications showing a strong attraction to Hitler and white supremacists, aided in his conviction.

The killing of a woman demonstrator (Heather Heyer, 32) by Fields at Charlottesville was an enormous propaganda victory for the Internationalist Left. It is being used to this day to smear President Trump and any opposition to the Progressive left.

Much of the organization of current “protests” seems designed to induce/promote a Charlottesville event, or at minimum, be portrayed as a Charlottesville event. Antifa is well organized, equipped and lead, according to this evaluation.

Drivers who approach protesters/agitators at these events have been stopped, threatened with guns, dragged from their vehicles, been shot at, shot, wounded, and killed. Protesters have been hit and injured and killed. Drivers of vehicles are always, it appears, characterized as racist, who are deliberately targeting protesters. But since Charlottesville, it has been exceedingly difficult to find an actual NAZI/ white supremacist.

At the Portland Chaz/Chop location, two teenage black boys approached the border in a stolen jeep Cherokee. They were fired on by event “security”. One was killed, the other severely wounded.

The initial description of the shooting at the event was that racists who had attacked people at the event had been fired on in defense.

A driver who accidentally struck two protesters who were blocking a freeway at night, near Seattle, killing one and severely injuring another, was described as a racist white supremacist in early reporting. The driver turned out to be a black immigrant from Africa. Both incidents occurred where the “protests” were sanctioned by local authorities.

In Austin, Texas, when an Army Sargent wandered into a protest accidentally and shot a protester who approached him, masked, with an AK-47 clone, in self-defense, protester sympathizes initially claimed he was a threat, that protesters did not mob his vehicle and strike it with their hands, and that people where running from the vehicle when the shooting occurred. None of those claims were true. The protest/street blockage was unofficially sanctioned by the local government.

Sgt. Daniel Perry tells his side of events at the link. He was moonlighting for a ride-sharing company when he found himself in the tragic situation.

Those mostly mythical racist/NAZI/white supremicists keep refusing to show up. That does not stop Antifa/BLM from working hard at creating them in the media. When protestors stop vehicles and beat innocent occupants, or shoot at vehicle occupants to enforce their will; or shoot drivers, the events are attempted to be portrayed as racists attacking “peaceful protestors”.

When two agitators illegally blocking a busy intersection in Indianapolis were caught on video pulling guns on the driver of a truck, who took pains to avoid them, they claimed they were acting in self defense. BLM claims people who hit agitators who are blocking streets are “white racists”.

“It’s always a double standard,” the group said. “White racist are killing and hitting protesters and then get mad when (we) defend ourselves.”

In Portland, agitators severely beat a man who attempted to help a pedestrian under attack. The attackers claimed he had tried to run them over. The evidence indicates the opposite.

If you happen to get caught up in one of these situations, expect to be provoked. Expect your car to be beaten upon. Expect agitators to signal you to roll down your window, to surround you, to throw bicycles and motor scooters or other objects in front of you. If they can get you to drive through them, striking one or more of them, they win! Do not assume the people in the street are illegally blocking the street. Barricades can be moved. Local authorities may have given “unofficial” sanction. If that proves to be the case, you are at significantly greater legal risk.

On numerous Internet forums, anonymous posters show bravado by saying they would drive over people who block them; they would shoot them; they would back away, and then shoot them. This is extremely unwise. If those posters ever get into a real situation, their Internet comments will be found and will be used against them, to show pre-meditation and white supremacist sympathies. They will be more than half-way to a felony conviction.

What should be done if you find yourself approaching a right of way blocked by numerous people?

Avoid the situation if possible. Do not approach any closer than necessary to turn left or right, or turn around. If you must go against a one-way street to avoid the crowd, do so. You, and the nation, are best served by you and your vehicle leaving the area.

If you are trapped by vehicles behind you, or swarmed by agitators/protestors surrounding your vehicle, do not keep moving, unless there is a clear way to exit the situation.

Do not leave your vehicle. Do not open a window, allowing access to your vehicle to aggressors. Do not get out of the vehicle to clear a blockage, unless you can do so without interacting with the people blocking the right of way.

Keep the vehicle locked, running, and ready to leave when you have the chance. Do not show a defensive weapon at this point.

Remember, many of these people have been programmed to consider you an evil racist who is a deadly threat.

They have been programmed to elicit a violent reaction.

Do not give it to them.

At what point is a violent, self-defense option justified? People have been dragged from their cars, beaten, shot at, wounded, and killed. Cars have been firebombed. The threat of severe injury or death can be real.

You must be able to convince a jury that as a reasonable person, you faced imminent severe injury or death. Here are some threat points to consider:

1. Forcing entry to your vehicle. If one of your windows, windshield, or back window is broken, a line has been crossed. Most jurors would consider a driver to be in imminent danger at that point. An opening of the vehicle door by an outsider would serve the same purpose. At that point, you face potential car-jacking.
2. Pointing firearms at you, particularly with orders to open a window or door, or otherwise leave the security of your vehicle.
3. Rocking your vehicle by the crowd. This indicates an attempt to overturn it.
4. Approaching the vehicle with a firebomb or attempting to force open access to the gas tank. Both should be considered a deadly threat. An open gas tank is like having a bomb strapped to your vehicle.

Not every threat is as clear. There are grey areas that can seem incredibly frightening at the time, but may not seem so to a jury. Consider the damage to your vehicle, such as dents to the hood or side panels, which do not facilitate entry. A jury may not consider them a deadly threat.

Immobilization of your vehicle is a step closer to a deadly threat. Once immobilized, you are much closer to being at the mercy of the mob.

Blinding you by covering the windshield and windows with paint, paper, fabric, other means, falls in this intermediate category. It always depends on the totality of the circumstances. Blinding you by covering windows is a significant threat. It may be seen as a ruse to get you to open a window or door.

One of the reasons protesters/agitators swarm vehicles is to serve the double purposes of intimidation and enhancing the possibility of a protester/martyr being injured.

Most vehicles can take a lot of damage and still be drive-able. Most vehicles can run for miles on flat tires. Better to sustain thousands of dollars of vehicular damage, than to be injured, killed, or undergo a trial in a hostile political climate, for hit and run or worse.

As with most self-defense situations, the steps are:  to avoid when possible; evaluate the threat; only react violently when justified.

If you must act violently, act decisively. Don’t stop until you are no longer under threat. Then contact the authorities, particularly 911. Hopefully, you have been able to record the threat. The protestor/agitators will have recorded you, you can be certain of that.

As Attorney General Barr has noted, we are under attack in a form of urban guerilla warfare. Interview with AG Barr:

“The way the guerrilla…hides out among the people as a fish in the ocean…what they do is they are essentially shielding themselves or shrouding themselves in First Amendment activity,” he explained. “They go into the demonstrations, which are exercising First Amendment activity, and they insinuate themselves in there to shield themselves. That’s where they swim. And what they do is they hijack these demonstrations and they and they provoke violence.”

Do not give the enemies of the Republic ammunition. Avoid becoming a physical or legal casualty.

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About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.