Peaceful Protest Turns Violent, Protester Pepper Sprayed By CMPD Officer

August 24, 2020

Trish Williford,

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CHARLOTTE — A peaceful protest in Uptown Charlotte turned violent. Our cameras were rolling in Marshall Park when a protester at a Resist RNC 2020 rally was pepper sprayed by a CMPD Officer.

It happened as we were interviewing Corine Mack with NAACP Charlotte about protesters facing off against counter-protesters minutes after the rally started.

“Police officers were out here defending the very people that are attack us, but nothing was said,” said Mack.

That interviewed was interrupted when Mack noticed a man facing off with a CMPD officer and was then pepper sprayed. The man stumbled away, and sprayed water over his eyes.

CMPD later tweeted they pepper sprayed and arrested a man after he choked a woman assaulted an officer. We did not see that. We asked CMPD if that was the same man in our video, but, a spokesperson said they couldn’t confirm that.