Newton police are investigating after a white man interrupted a peaceful, youth-led Black Lives Matter demonstration outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon, argued with high school students and their teachers, then sped away in a pickup truck — passing close by young protesters.
The unidentified man, who wore a surgical mask, shouted down a 15-year-old speaker at the protest, yelling out, “Do all Black lives matter?” When the crowd responded yes, he shouted, “What about the unborn Black babies?” according to video posted online and eyewitness accounts.
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said in a statement that the man confronted the protesters after “conducting business inside City Hall” and “then got into his pick-up truck and reportedly drove aggressively toward the demonstrators (even though there was another exit available).”
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“We are fortunate that no one was hurt,” Fuller said, adding that members of her staff were present and have given their eyewitness accounts to the police.
“I take Newton’s core values of respect, acceptance and diversity seriously, and am deeply disturbed by what was reported to have occurred this afternoon,” Fuller said. “People have a right to peacefully protest.”
Lieutenant Bruce Apotheker, a Newton police spokesman, said, “The incident remains under investigation. Anyone that has information about this incident is encouraged to call Newton police” at 617-796-2100.
The protest was organized by five students from Newton North High School through a group called BIPOC in Newton, using the acronym for “Black, indigenous, and people of color.”
It drew about 60 demonstrators, including many Newton North students and their siblings, some as young as 10 and 12 years old, according to organizer Uche Okonkwo, 15, who brought her 13-year-old sister.
It began with a “die-in” lasting eight minutes and 46 seconds, the span a since-fired Minneapolis police officer kept his knee pressed against George Floyd’s neck as Floyd lay dying on Memorial Day. The action blocked the intersection of Lowell and Commonwealth avenues, organizers said.
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Demonstrators then marched to City Hall, where Okonkwo was the first speaker, but the man emerged from the building and began talking over her, organizers said.
“A man came out, spewing racist remarks . . . talking about abortion and how not all Black lives matter since Black babies are getting killed,” Okonkwo said. “I told him, ‘Women have the choice to do what they want with their own bodies, [expletive].’ Then he came back in a rather . . . antagonizing type of way.”
The man approached her saying, “What did you just say to me?” Okonkwo said, and she was briefly frightened.
But the crowd, including two Newton North teachers present for the protest, stepped in and asked the man to leave, saying the young people were only “exercising our First Amendment right to protest,” Okonkwo said.
Organizer Alexandra Fitzgerald, 16, a Newton North student who attended the demonstration with her parents, said she and others told the man, “You’re speaking with children. You should leave.”
The man walked away, climbed into his Ford pickup, and drove rapidly through a gap in the crowd, coming close enough to protesters that a few jumped out of the way, according to video and witness accounts.
Okonkwo believes the man was trying to frighten protesters but not to harm them, she said.
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“He sent a message by driving through where children were standing, peacefully protesting. I believe that he did that deliberately,” she said, adding, “It’s disgusting that people like that get away with things like that — endangering children, scaring people.”
Fitzgerald felt in the moment that the danger was real, she said. Her father was among the protesters who jumped out of the truck’s way as the man sped off.
“He was absurdly close to people,” she said. “I saw a kid who looked like he was 12 years old have to run out of the way to avoid getting hit.”
Okonkwo and Fitzgerald, both lifelong Newton residents, said it wasn’t unusual to see a white person in Newton being racially insensitive.
“I’m not surprised that it happened,” Okonkwo said, adding that she hears students make racist comments at school all the time. “People say the n-word; people make jokes about Black people, slavery.”
Fitzgerald said, “It doesn’t’ fit with the Newton that people like to pretend it is, but unfortunately it didn’t surprise me.”
Even before the demonstrators reached City Hall, they saw opposition to their message, Okonkwo said.
“When we were on the junction, there was a man who stopped his car just to yell, ‘Blue lives matter!’ back at us,” Okonkwo said. “What he clearly doesn’t understand is that ‘blue lives’ don’t exist because police officers choose their occupation. Black people do not choose to be Black. There are also Black police officers, so it doesn’t really work as a counter-movement.”
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Fitzgerald said she hoped the demonstration’s message of racial justice wouldn’t be overshadowed by one man’s actions.
“I think it’s important to recognize the strength of the speakers who spoke up about their experiences,” she said. “I think that was the more important part of the protest.”
John Hilliard of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox.
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