On June 27th, BLM activists set up an illegal encampment at a downtown Louisville park. They tried to emulate the 24/7 Black Lives Matter “autonomous zone” protest in Seattle. Tyler Charles Gerth, a white male, was shot and killed. Gerth has been described as a left-wing activist who was taking photos of the rioting.
Police arrested Steven Nelson Lopez, a mixed-race BLM activist. Lopez had already been arrested at previous BLM riots, and police had confiscated a gun from him. Witnesses claim Lopez took a gun from another man and opened fire wildly into a crowd of people.
Gerth was one of dozens of killings during the nationwide BLM/Antifa riots in 2020. At an earlier BLM riot in Louisville, on June 1st, David McAtee, a 53-year-old Black male, died in a shootout with police and national guardsmen. Later, on September 18th, Toreon Hudson went on a shooting spree inside a Louisville, KY bar. He was wearing a racially charged BLM-inspired t-shirt. He murdered two White males and a Black male.
Now, three and a half years later, Lopez received a plea deal for manslaughter and wanton endangerment. Lopez will be sentenced on February 13th.
