Black protester who carried injured white man wanted to avert ‘catastrophe’
A black man who was seen on video carrying an injured white protester to safety in London told CNN that he did it to prevent negative narratives from forming against the Black Lives Matter movement.
Patrick Hutchinson said that the unidentified white man, apparently a counterprotester, was still being struck by protesters as Hutchinson carried him to medical and police personnel on Saturday.
“My real focus was on avoiding a catastrophe, all of a sudden the narrative changes into ‘Black Lives Matters, Youngsters Kill Protesters.’ That was the message we were trying to avoid,” he told CNN.
“I am carrying him, my friends are protecting myself and the man on my shoulder. He was still receiving blows, you can feel people trying to hit him,” he continued. “There were people trying to protect him at the same time carried him over to the police and I said here you are. One of them said, ‘Thank you – you did a good thing there.'”
I’ve been speaking to Patrick Hutchinson, the man carrying an injured stranger during clashes yesterday between far right & anti racist activists.
“His life was under threat” Patrick said. “so I put him on my shoulders and marched towards the police” @channel4news #c4news @ 530 pic.twitter.com/c0ysrNG4aC— Keme Nzerem (@kemenzerem) June 14, 2020
Hutchinson added that police thanked him for his effort.
Violence reportedly broke out at the London protest after right-wing groups arrived at the protest in London.
Protests have continued in the city as well as across the U.S. for weeks over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis as well as other black people in the U.S. and elsewhere who have died in police custody.
“I want to see equality for everybody. I am a father, a grandfather and I would love to see my young children, my young grandchildren, my nieces, my nephews have a better world than I have lived in,” Hutchinson told CNN. “The world I live in has been better than my grandparents and my parents and hopefully we can continue until we have total equality for everyone.”
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