Driver ‘who fatally shot protester Garrett Foster incited violence by accelerating car into BLM crowd’
THE driver who allegedly shot dead protester Garrett Foster incited the violence by accelerating towards the crowd, a witness has claimed.
, who was armed with an AK-47, was shot three times and killed just moments after pushing his fiancée in a wheelchair at a protest in Austin on July 25.
The shooter was in a car and later claimed he shot Foster out of self defense after he pointed his AK-47 at him.
Footage obtained by the shows Foster standing next to the car with the barrel of the rifle pointed towards the ground and his hand appearing to be placed on the grip of the gun.
Witnesses backed up the claim that Foster approached the vehicle with his rifle, however one witness says he did not incite the violence, but the driver did.
"I want to be very clear that the driver incited the violence," James Sasinowski told . "He accelerated into the crowd of people and he shot first."
While Sasinowski was not sure if Foster pointed his gun at the driver, he said the driver's actions were aggressive as he "accelerated into a crowd of protesters."
"He could have waited for us to pass or he could have gone slowly," he added. "We would have allowed him to go through."
According to , the driver shot Foster after while other protesters began "striking the vehicle".
The driver and another person who fired a gun at the vehicle as it drove away were both brought in for questions and have been released pending further investigation.
In a tweet, Austin Police Association President Kenneth Casaday said Foster was "looking for a confrontation and he found it."
Foster's mother, Shelia, told Good Morning America that her son was licensed to carry a gun and that she wouldn't have been surprised if "
Sheila said her son had been taking care of his fiancee, Whitney Mitchell, a quadruple amputee.
"I saw my son at 19 years old brush this girl's teeth, comb her hair," She told GMA.
"He would put her on the toilet and clean her up, and he would make sure that she got bathed and make sure that she was able to get dressed and took her everywhere that she needed to go.
"And he's been doing that ever since. They just bought their house in Austin two years ago."
In an interview with , Mitchell's mother, Patricia Kirven called Foster Mitchell's fifth limb.
"Whitney is not good. Heartbroken is not enough to describe her," Kirven said. "She'f just broke because he's been. apart of her life for more than 10 years. She lost all four limbs, he was her other limb and they took him away from her."
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The couple was planning to get married after Mitchell was able to master her prosthetics.
According to Kirven, they were out protesting as they dealt with racism regularly as an interracial couple.
"They wanted to give back and help people," she said. "They didn't go there to start any trouble. They went there because they really believed in the cause. They weren't there to destroy statues or property."