‘Insecure’ Actor Kendrick Sampson Hit by Rubber Bullets at Los Angeles Protest
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“Insecure” actor Kendrick Sampson was hit by police’s rubber bullets while protesting George Floyd’s death in Los Angeles on Saturday.
While the actor went live on his Instagram account to show his view of events, he could be seen on a CNN broadcast simultaneously, with viewers watching Sampson get hit by a police baton on TV.
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You’ll see Kendrick Sampson in Black, on the front lines being hit repeatedly by a cop with a baton pic.twitter.com/Iq8SbB6v76
— TEE “AIN’T BLACK” FRANKLIN IS GOLDEN (@MizTeeFranklin) May 30, 2020
On his Instagram live video, he said that he’d been shot by rubber bullets four times while protesting.
“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—ing up white folks when they took guns to the statehouse,” he said. “Y’all didn’t see police attacking white folks, beating em up with batons, shooting them with rubber bullets when they brought guns to f—ing state houses. We came up here with no weapons, with masks.… And we’re the ones who are not peaceful.”
Sampson was in West Hollywood on Saturday afternoon for a demonstration his Build Power initiative co-organized with Black Lives Matter at Pan Pacific Park. Similar demonstrations around the country took place to protest the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minnesota police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.
“We did an event together — peaceful, powerful, talking about defunding the police, talking about building power in our communities and what that really looks like. That’s what we were doing. We marched to the intersection at Fairfax, we were there for a bit. We closed it out with a chant,” he said.
After the demonstration ended and some protestors marched on, Sampson explained he saw police getting more aggressive and decided to stay put instead of heading home.
“I wanted to make sure that folks weren’t getting brutalized because that’s what we do, we look out for each other. So I started a platform to make sure that people saw what was going on.”
Upwards of 5,000 people watched Sampson’s live account as he stood face to face with police at the front lines of the protest.
“How to Get Away with Murder” star Matt McGorry was standing alongside Sampson, as protestors faced police in a supermarket parking lot. McGorry was also recording on his cell phone when he was shot by LAPD with a projectile, posting the footage to his Instagram account.
Grammy-nominated singer Halsey went live on Instagram from the same protest, sharing information on that platform and her Twitter account. Tinashe, Yungblud, Machine Gun Kelland actor Travon Free also marched in Los Angeles, while J.Cole also joined protests in his North Carolina hometown Saturday.
John Cusack tweeted later that police hit his bike was hit by police batons after he filmed a burning car.
Cops didn’t like me filming the burning car so they came at me with batons. Hitting my bike.
Ahhm herea the audio pic.twitter.com/tfaOoVCw5v— John Cusack (@johncusack) May 31, 2020
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