ATTORNEY CALLS FOR “JUSTICE” FOR GRANDMOTHER SHOT IN FOREHEAD WITH PROJECTILE DURING PROTEST AT LA MESA POLICE STATION
When some protesters encroached close to the vandalized police station, police released a large number of projectiles at once in what Migala describes as. “shock and awe.” Police came down stairs and out onto the patio in front of their headquarters as “panicked people were running away,” he says. “The police made a line to form a perimeter around their building.”
Later at night, some engaged in looting and vandalism of businesses as well as burning vehicles, two banks and a historic building. But it is not yet known who committed those criminal acts. Black Lives Matter has denounced the looting and fires; some witnesses have said that vehicles arrived after the protest, carrying black-clad individuals some of whom wielded baseball bats and incendiary devices with them. These may have been outside agitators on the far left, far right, or criminal gangs that may not have been part of the original protest.
Though besieged officers may have had concerns over their safety amid an increasingly raucus protest and vandalism of their station, a video on social media aired by CBS showed Furcron sipping from a beverage can that by some accounts she then tossed. She reportedly was taking photos or video with her cell phone when she was struck between the eyes and knocked to the ground, blood streaming from the wound in her forehead in which a white projectile was embedded.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to cover Furcron’s her medical expenses. As of tonight, it has raised more than $100,000. Donations may be made at https://www.gofundme.com/f/csgskf-love-and-support-for-leslie.
Rebecca Jefferis Williamson is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer who has covered a wide-variety of subjects ranging from civil protests, community news and features to health issues including Covid-19, PFAS toxins, and Newcastle disease. Besides being a part of the East County Magazine team, she has freelanced for the San Diego Community Newspaper Group, Local Web Media, the Chula Vista Star News, San Diego Family Magazine, Military Press, and a number of other newspapers.
Miriam Raftery, ECM Editor and host of ECM's radio show on KNSJ, has won more than 350 journalism awards for national and regional coverage. Her experience covering major protests, disasters and civil unrest includes the Alfred Olango police shooting in El Cajon anti-war marches in Washington D.C. during the Iraq War, protests over lack of federal resources after Hurricane Katrina, demonstrations by Iraqi-Americans in El Cajon calling on the U.S. to protect Iraqi Chaldean Christians from ISIS terrorists, and two of California's worst wildfires -- the 2003 Cedar Fire and 2007 firestorms in San Diego County.
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