A skirmish broke out Saturday (Aug. 29) afternoon right outside the Old Capitol Building in downtown Tallahassee during a protest to demand justice for Jacob Blake and ended when a counter-protester reportedly pulled out a gun.
Footage of the incident quickly made rounds on social media and show Tallahassee police officers were nearby directing traffic. Seconds later a woman screamed into the camera, “He has a gun!”
A man is then seen holding a gun at a protester, now identified as Adam Ferguson, who began to kneel on the ground and raise his hands. Nearby cops directed the man holding the gun to get on the ground as they drew their weapons, handcuffed him, took him away then ordered for the crowd to disperse.
According to Ferguson, the argument began after the man punched his girlfriend in an attempt to punch another person. The gun-toting counter-protester initially walked up to a crowd of roughly 150 protesters and began arguing with them.
“It was all just 60 seconds but it felt much longer,” Ferguson told the Tallahassee Democrat. “I don’t know why he would bring violence to a peaceful protest, when he pulled the gun out it all went rank.”
As of recent, there has been an uptick of reported gun intimidation and violence during protests.
On Saturday (Aug. 29), a man lost his life after Trump supporters ravaged Black Lives Matters protesters in Portland with mace, paintball guns and other projectiles. On Wednesday (Aug. 26) morning, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse was charged with First Degree Intentional Homicide for killing two protesters at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Kenosha and cities all across the nation have become continued places of protests as people take to the streets in the fight for the justice of Blake, a 29-year-old unarmed black man who was shot in the back seven times by a police officer, and the increasing amount Black lives lost at the hands of police such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.