Support Arturo Gamboa An Antiracist accused of murder
(photo of Arturo in a leather jacket smiling outside)
Write to him at
Arturo Gamboa 457904
c/o Salt Lake County Metro Jail
3415 S. 900 W. Salt Lake City, UT 84119

Arturo was providing community defense as he has been known to do for years.
(still from a video with a red arrow pointing at Gamboa walking with a gun pointed at the ground and a yellow arrow pointing at "designated peacekeeper" pointing a gun at Gamboa, from a couple feet away)
While walking with his gun pointing at the ground a 50501 marshall drew on him and opened fire, killing one bystander and injuring Arturo, yet Arturo is the one facing murder charges

 The armed, yellow-vested "peacekeepers" at the Utah 50501 protest in Salt Lake City opened fire into a crowd, hitting two people:
A Sāmoan fashion designer with two young kids, who died.
A second-generation Venezuelan immigrant and antiracist protester who was legally carrying. Cops charged HIM.
(photos of both the fashion designer (Afa Ah Loo) and Arturo below)

The yellow-vested "peacekeepers" at the Utah 50501 event also approached several protesters and asked them to remove their masks and keffiyehs because they looked "too aggressive"
(image below of another post that says: Had one of those yellow vest people come up to me yesterday and ask me and my friends to take our masks off becasue it was suspicious. When we said we felt safter and would stay masked she then asked me to swap my keffiyeh for a normal mask because it was "too aggressive". I didn't obviously but wtf)

This morning, the national 50501 account posted a statement on Bluesky praising the actions of their "volunteer member of the protest safety team", calling the shooting victim a "depraved and disturbed domestic terrorist."
They have since deleted their post and have not issued a followup statement
(4 images from said account with proof. the visible portions of the images say: "any form of violence or advocacy of it. Our hearts go out to the protestors, attendees, residents of SLC, Pacifica community, and most importantly the victim's family as they mourn the loss of a beautiful life." "We're still gathering facts and are in contact with organizers on the ground. From our understanding, this was caused by a depraved and disturbed domestic terrorist who brandished an AR-15 and went into a crowd of peaceful protestors with an agenda to commit what we can only" "stop him, firing 3 rounds, striking the man and prventing a potential mass casualty event. In the process, he also hit an innocent bystander, Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, better known as Afa, before rushing over to give him first aid. Afa later died from his injuries, and the man with the AR-" "Our hearts go out the protestors, attendees, residents of SLC, Pacifica community, and most importantly the victim's family as they mourn the loss of a beautiful life.")

Utah is a permitless carry state. SLC has an open carry ordinance, and protests frequently see AR-15s being carried openly.
This environment makes threat assessment more challenging, which is why having armed "security" volunteers who lack extensive training is an incredibly reckless idea.
(link to a 2020 article from The Guardian titled "The birth of a militia: how an armed group polices Black Lives Matter protests." The link preview text showing an excerpt from that article says: "In Utah, members of a militia claim their presence deters protesters from becoming ..."

 Utah antiracist activists say that Gamboa (the young Venezuelan-American activist who was one of the two shooting victims) has been a fixture at local rallies, has open-carried his AR-15 before, and has never been  violent.
The police are charging him with homicide despite him never firing a shot.
(image of Gamboa doing a Black Power salute among a crowd of also-saluting antiracists)

KSL News Utah legal analyst Greg Skordas a defense attorney and former deputy DA says the recommended murder charge against Gamboa will be "difficult to charge never mind proescute."
He says the DA will look at the actions of the "peacekeeper," and doubts his actions will be found "reasonable.
(still from a KSL Investigates news clip of a a crowd walking by. The headline says: Murder Charge Could Be Difficult to Prove in Fatal Protest Shooting")

Two days after Salt Lake City Police released a one-sided statement suggesting an innocent man was a mass shooter while praising the actual killers, local news finally reports that police are investigating the "peacekeepers" who fired into the crowd.
The killer's name is still not published.

source

Note, I’m neither American, nor heavily in that scene. I’m merely signal boosting what I feel is important information countering lib propaganda.

  • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    We have the video of him running towards the crowd with his gun in a ready position. Whether he’s a leftist or not, his actions were unbelievably stupid and put the lives of everyone around him in danger. Him being shot was totally reasonable, the only tragedy here is that an innocent person died.

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
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      His actions were justified given that he was being shot at. I disagree wholly with you. I think the whole US gun-carry society is stupid and causes these stupid deaths, but within that context, I didn’t see him doing anything wrong except trusting libs to act reasonably.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      Weird, but watching the video I see him running from something, not towards anyone.

      Are you saying when you run away from someone you drop your arms to your side? Anything you are carrying is probably pulled towards your chest so you aren’t unbalanced and trip and fall.

      Saying it’s the “ready” position is inferring intent that may not be there.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          He was just wrongly shot by a trigger-happy psycho who may be hunting him? If he wanted to shoot people he was well within range to do so. Why would he need to charge the crowd to do that? Why didn’t he shoot anyone after charging them? There is nothing to support the narrative that he was violent.

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 day ago

            Wrongly shot? Are you saying it’s unreasonable to see a person come out of an alley with a long rifle they didn’t see before, and assume that person is about to do a mass shooting?

            If so, why do you assume it’s unreasonable to think that? And would you still think it’s unreasonable to be worried about a mass shooting if you knew for sure the person was right-wing or MAGA?

            • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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              Wrongly shot? Are you saying it’s unreasonable to see a person come out of an alley with a long rifle they didn’t see before, and assume that person is about to do a mass shooting?

              When open carry is legal, yeah, it’s unreasonable (if you want to argue that allowing people to carry firearms is stupid I’d agree with you, but that was the situation here so the participants need to act appropriately). He wasn’t holding the rifle in a threatening manner or pointing it at the crowd. You can see this in the video. There was nothing to indicate he was about to shoot someone. If he was MAGA or not is irrelevant, carrying a rifle where carrying is legal is not implicitly a threat. There has to be more than that before you start shooting at someone.

            • Chakravanti@monero.town
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              1 day ago

              I just gotta ask, what do those cops pay? I mean that “what” too because I know we both know cash has neg value. I can tell, you are part of something nefarious. Confess now or they gonna pull that trigger on you. Just Sayan’

        • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          After being shot at? “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. Someone is trying to kill me. I gotta hide.”

          I’ve considered getting a conceal carry license. My use of a gun, if something were to happen is to try and give me a chance to run away. I don’t want to stand my ground when bullets start flying. I don’t want to kill who is shooting. I just want to get to safety.

          • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 day ago

            So you think concealing your weapon when police are looking for an active shooter is the smart thing to do? Instead of getting rid of the weapon, or even surrendering?

            I’m trying to suspend my disbelief that you would do something so unbelievably stupid and ill advised for your own survival. Because somebody who does something like that is someone that doesn’t intend on surviving.

            • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              I don’t presume to know what he is thinking.

              However, if I went to a protest where:

              • I was legally carrying my weapon.
              • I did not fire any rounds.
              • I heard “drop your weapon” (which I may not know was directed at me.)
              • I heard gunfire.
              • I ran to safety.

              I may not know the “active shooter” was me, because I did not shoot a single round. I could consider putting my weapon away so the police, who have been known to shoot a “good guy with a gun” don’t mistake me for the active shooter.

              • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                1 day ago

                OK, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that in the heat of the moment, with adrenaline pumping through his veins, his actions were reasonable to him.

                Why don’t you think it’s reasonable for someone who doesn’t know him, and just sees a random guy coming towards the protest with a gun he didn’t have before, to not assume that person is planning something malicious? Is it not OK for another person, also in the heat of the moment, with adrenaline pumping through their veins, to make the decision to draw their weapon and attempt to stop what they might have seen as the start of a mass shooting?

                If you don’t think it’s reasonable, then what is it that differentiates the two people that weighs your opinion against one and towards the other?

                • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  1 day ago

                  I’m not saying their action was unreasonable, I don’t know what they perceived. I just don’t agree with assuming malicious intent for either person.

                  But the decision to pull the trigger is always a heavy one and it needs to have critical examination as to what lead to it. That decision to pull the trigger lead to the death of a bystander, even if that wasn’t their intention.

                  It’s also always possible that both sides were wrong or that both sides were doing what they thought was right.

                  • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    Yes, that’s my point, both sides were doing what they thought was right. But just because you think your actions are right, doesn’t mean that they were. And one of these people shouldn’t be excused for the missteps they took just because of their political affiliation. That’s no different than what MAGA does.