A mob of Black Lives Matter agitators in Rochester, N.Y., physically trapped shoppers in a Wegmans grocery store on Tuesday, the one-year anniversary of the death of Daniel Prud, a41-year-old black man. As shoppers struggled to escape, the agitators wrote Black Lives Matter slogans on the parking lot asphalt with chalk. The shoppers did find a way out and the store appears to be closed.
A crowd of approximately 200 Black Lives Matter agitators marched in Rochester, closing down streets. “We have a long walk today, we’re shutting s&*! down,” one organizer said, according to ABC 13 WHAM reporter Michael Schwartz. He reported that the crowd shut down the intersection of East & Alexander.
The Black Lives Matter mob marched toward the Wegmans, chanting, “Say his name! Daniel Prude!”
NOW IN ROCHESTER: More than 200 people have walked more than 2 miles with plans to disrupt. They’re approaching East Ave Wegmans. #DanielPrude pic.twitter.com/3e45DRfU7e
— Michael_Schwartz (@MSchwartzWHAM) March 23, 2021
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Schwartz shared videos of Black Lives Matter agitators rushing to the doors of the Wegmans with drums. Menacing, they shouted “Black Lives Matter!” at the doors, which employees held closed.
Other side pic.twitter.com/XXvfAjGz3A
— Michael_Schwartz (@MSchwartzWHAM) March 23, 2021
“I’m seeing frustrated customers inside trying to get to home with groceries. Store remains closed down as more than 100 have shut it down,” Schwartz reported.
It does not seem the customers were trapped inside the Wegmans for long. A few minutes after Schwartz reported the lockdown, he noted that customers had escaped through a different side.
However, Black Lives Matter agitators blocked the parking lot with their personal vehicles, likely preventing shoppers from returning home with their groceries.
One demonstrator wrote “Defund the Police” on a “Store closed” sign.
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Wegmans staff told Schwartz that all the customers had exited the store, which remained shut down.
BREAKING: Wegmans tells me there’s no more customers inside. East Ave store remains shut down #ROC pic.twitter.com/v6blCgWVDw
— Michael_Schwartz (@MSchwartzWHAM) March 23, 2021
Americans should be shocked to see Black Lives Matter agitators physically block people from feeding their families. These agitators didn’t target the police station or the federal courthouse, they prevented innocent civilians from buying groceries and taking them home.
Yet according to Marxist critical race theory, every aspect of the society is implicated in America’s “structural racism.” Accosting people in the grocery store and preventing them from feeding their families is the logical conclusion of the slogan, “No Justice, No Peace!”
Daniel Prude, the man this “protest” was ostensibly about, died after Rochester police physically restrained him on March 23, 2020. Prude had been walking naked in the city’s streets after ingesting PCP. He had been a danger to himself and others. Officers restrained him and put a spit hood over his head after he began spitting. They held him face down on the pavement for two minutes and fifteen seconds, and he stopped breathing. Prude received CPR on the scene and later died of complications from asphyxia after getting taken off of life support.
The autopsy ruled Prude’s death a homicide and noted contributing factors to his death, such as “excited delirium and acute intoxication by phencyclidine, or PCP.” On February 23, 2021, Attorney General Letitia James (D-N.Y.) announced that a grand jury declined to charge the seven officers involved in Prude’s death. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of New York announced it would review the report and consider a federal response.
Prude’s death was tragic, but it remains unclear whether or not his race had anything to do with it. Anyone walking naked in the streets under the influence of PCP would be arrested. Officers arguably should not have held him face down on the pavement for more than two minutes, but this story is far more complicated than the Black Lives Matter narrative would suggest.
Difficult as it may be, Americans should refrain from rushing to judgement in complex police cases like this one. Sadly, the Black Lives Matter movement and its allies in antifa follow the logic of critical race theory and interpret any such incident as proof of “systemic racism.”
Agitators have not only targeted police and federal law enforcement, but citizens in their neighborhoods. After the death of George Floyd last year, mobs robbed stores in broad daylight. Now, it seems Black Lives Matter agitators are trapping innocent civilians in grocery stores, preventing people from feeding their families. When does it stop?
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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