A North Carolina judge has been slapped with a criminal charge after being accused of nearly hitting a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters with his SUV during a protest in Fayetteville.
Appeals Court Judge John M. Tyson is charged with one felony in connection with the incident that occurred earlier this month, The Fayetteville Observer reported.
Video of the incident obtained by the Observer shows the SUV apparently belonging to Tyson come within inches of protesters who were standing in the inside lane in a traffic circle around Fayetteville’s Market House, which used to be the grounds of the state’s Capitol.
The inside lane of the traffic circle was closed down for vehicle traffic months ago after a mural reading “Black Lives Do Matter. End Racism Now,” was painted in the lane.
One protester said told the newspaper that it was the judge who went around the traffic circle in the outer lane just a minute or so before returning and going around the traffic circle in the prohibited inside lane where he had seen the protesters just moments earlier.
“It’s clearly been pieced together,” Bishop McNeill, a member of the Fayetteville Activist Movement, told the Observer.
Tyson will face the charge in a trial that will begin next month, the newspaper reported.
