A man who was believed to be part of a peacekeeping team for the “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City shot at a person who was brandishing a rifle at demonstrators, striking both the rifleman and a bystander who later died at the hospital, authorities said Sunday.
Police took the alleged rifleman, Arturo Gamboa, 24, into custody Saturday evening on a murder charge, Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said at a Sunday news conference. The bystander was Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, 39, a fashion designer from Samoa.
Detectives don’t yet know why Gamboa pulled out a rifle or ran from the peacekeepers, but they accused him of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo’s death. The Associated Press did not immediately find an attorney listed for Gamboa or contact information for his family in public records.
I’m sorry, let’s all be quiet about the murders happening at peaceful protests; the man who is attempting to install himself as god-king of the western world; the knee that this god-king is bending to Russia; and all the human rights violations occurring daily across the country so that you can keep living in your whack country in peace.
A person doesn’t need to have an answer to a systemic clusterfuck in order to call it out, and calling it out reminds us that none of this is normal. If we stop calling the US whack, then people start accepting the whack-ness as the new normal.
Nobody is being quiet about it, though. People are on the ground doing real things to try to change this. Like, ALL kinds of people. It takes time, and saying things like “your country is whack” isn’t helpful in and of itself. Saying “looking at this thing happening in your whack country right now” (like this post) is helpful. I didn’t ask anybody to solve our problems.