'They didn't even see me as human': Black activist recounts how a group of white men attacked him and allegedly threatened to 'get a noose' at a lake in Indiana as FBI launches investigation
A black civil rights activist who says he was the victim of an 'attempted lynching' by a group of white men in Indiana has shared his agony over the filmed attack as the FBI launches an investigation.
Vauhxx Booker shared video of the July 4 altercation at Monroe Lake outside Bloomington on Facebook, sparking a nationwide outcry as the white men were seen pinning him to a tree and shouting racist insults.
In the Facebook post Booker wrote that the men made statements about 'white power', threatened to break his arms and one of them said: 'Get a noose' while telling Booker's friends to leave the area they claimed was private property.
Booker said he called 911 after the altercation, but responding officers from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) refused to make any arrests despite seeing the videos filmed by his friends.
He and his attorney are now calling for the men, who have not been identified, to face charges over the 'racially motivated' attack, which he said left him with a concussion, many cuts and bruises and bald patches where his hair was pulled out.
The FBI on Tuesday announced that it is investigating the incident but did not offer any additional details.
Civil rights activist Vauhxx Booker described how a group of white men allegedly brutally attacked him at an Indiana lake over the weekend in an interview with ABC News (pictured)
Booker posted cellphone video on Facebook that shows part of the altercation at Lake Monroe, including a clip where the white men appear to pin him to a tree
Booker recounted his version of the attack in an interview with ABC News aired Wednesday.
He said he and his friend were on their way to watch the lunar eclipse at an organized event on Saturday when a white man with 'an oversized hat with a confederate flag print on it' began following him in an ATV.
Booker claimed the man informed him and his friend that they were trespassing on private property, so they apologized and continued on their way to the event.
He said they then came across another group that was heading to the event, who claimed that some people were blocking them from accessing the beach.
'As more group members arrived they informed us they had encountered this gentleman and he blocked off the beachway with a boat and several ATVS and he had yelled "White Power" at them, along with some other slurs,' Booker told ABC News.
He said he and the group approached the people blocking the beach and made a 'calm and polite' attempt to diffuse the situation before things escalated.
'Looking back now, it's apparent that these individuals began targeting our group the moment they saw myself, a black man, and were looking to provoke a conflict,' Booker wrote in his Facebook post.
Booker said the attack unfolded after a group of white people confronted him and his friend as they made their way to a Fourth of July event on Saturday afternoon. Three of the people in the group are shown above in a video believed to have been recorded by Booker's friend
Booker said he and his friend were trying to walk away from the aggressors when two of them knocked him to the ground. Video shows at least three men holding him up against a tree
He said he and his friend were turning to leave when several of the aggressors began following them and two men knocked him to the ground from behind.
'I tussled with the two and another one joined in, then two more,' he wrote in his Facebook post. 'The five were able to easily overwhelm me and got me to the ground and dragged me pinning my body against a tree as they began pounding on my head and ripped off some of my hair, with several of them still on top of my body holding me down.'
'They held me pinned and continued beating me for several minutes seemingly become more and more enraged as they kept trying to seriously injure me and failing. At one point during the attack one of the men jumped on my neck. I could feel both his feet and his full bodyweight land hard against my neck.'
Only part of the altercation was captured in videos recorded by Booker's acquaintances that he included in his post.
One clip shows Booker hunched over as at least two men pinned him against a tree and several other people in their group crowded around, while Booker's friends begged for them to let him go.
The commotion drew even more people over to the area, Booker wrote, noting that he didn't know most of them.
'While they were beating me against this tree and people were pleading for them to let me go and struggling to get towards me, one of the gentleman yells to his friend to get a noose,' Booker told ABC News.
'Not a rope, but literally a noose. And I hear a white woman yell: "Don't kill him." And I realize that she's talking about them killing me.'
'They were literally referring to me as a boy,' he continued. 'They didn't even see me as human. They just saw me as something they could abuse and get away with.'
Many of Booker's descriptions, including the lead-up to the confrontation, the call to 'get a noose', the threat to break his arms and a man stomping on his neck, are not visible in the videos.
The videos do, however, show several of the men cursing and using racially-charged language at him after he said onlookers were able to pull him out of harm's way.
In one clip a man is heard repeatedly calling someone off-camera a 'nappy-headed b***h'.
In another the same man yells: 'You invaded us!' and calls someone in Booker's group a 'stupid f**king liberal f**ks.'
As Booker's group walks away, one of the men follows them shouting: 'Those black boys want to start it all.'
Many of Booker's descriptions, including the lead-up to the confrontation, the call to 'get a noose', the threat to break his arms and a man stomping on his neck, are not visible in the videos. The videos do, however, show several of the men cursing and using racially-charged language at him after he said onlookers were able to pull him out of harm's way
In one clip a man (pictured) is heard calling someone off-camera a 'nappy headed b***h'
After the situation diffused Booker called 911 and a few witnesses stayed with him to explain what had happened to responding officers from the IDNR's Law Enforcement Division.
He said the officers decided not to make any arrests despite watching his video and seeing the cuts and bruises on his body.
'They didn't seem overly concerned that I might need medical attention or anything else,' Booker told ABC News. 'I didn't even feel like they were going to do an investigation.'
He said the officers didn't even take down the names of the attackers until one of the white people who intervened demanded that the officers conduct a thorough investigation.
'I was heartbroken when the supervising officer, the major, showed up. I felt re-traumatized as I recounted to him how I was afraid for my life,' Booker said.
He said the supervising officer told him: 'Well I could go arrest these guys but they would tell me: "Hey, what about our property rights. We have a right to defend our property."'
'It was earth shattering,' Booker added.
Booker claimed that police officers responding to reports of the alleged battery showed little interest in investigating until a white witness demanded they do so
After Booker's Facebook post went viral head of IDNR's Law Enforcement Division confirmed that it was investigating the alleged battery at the lake and would be submitting its report to the Monroe County Prosecutor Erika Oliphant's office.
Oliphant issued a statement saying that it expects to receive the report soon.
'As soon as that happens, we will thoroughly review all of it and determine what charges are appropriate,' she said.
The FBI joined the case on Tuesday and is now questioning witnesses to determine whether charges will be brought, according to Booker's attorney, Katherine Liell.
'We want this investigated as a hate crime. It was clearly racially motivated,' Liell told the Associated Press.
'We will continue our quest every day until some justice is served.'
Liell also complained that the IDNR officers 'did not move rapidly enough' in response to reports of the attack.
She said their failure to make arrests at the scene warrants further investigation from other law enforcement agencies.
Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton and Bloomington City Clerk Nicole Bolden issued a statement Monday expressing their 'outrage and grief' over what they said was a racially motivated attack.
State Sen Mark Stoops, a Bloomington Democrat, said he was 'horrified by the racist attack' and called on Republican Eric Holcomb to suspend and investigate the Department of Natural Resources officers who responded to the scene for failing to make any arrests.
'This is not just an issue of violence,' Stoops said in a statement Monday. 'This is clearly a hate crime and must be treated as such.'
Hundreds of members of the Bloomington community turned out for a protest demanding arrests in Booker's attack on Monday night
Booker broke down in tears as he addressed the crowd gathered at the protest
Hundreds of members of the Bloomington community turned out for a protest demanding arrests in Booker's attack on Monday night.
As the demonstration began to disperse a confrontation broke out between protesters who had blocked the street in front of the Monroe County Courthouse with a scooter and a couple driving a car trying to pass through.
Viral video showed a man getting out of the passenger seat of the red Toyota and throwing the scooter to the side.
Moments later the car rammed into a 29-year-old female protester who had walked up to the car and placed her hands on the hood to stop it from passing.
Police Capt Ryan Pedigo said the female driver then accelerated into the woman, knocking her onto the hood as another male protester grabbed onto the driver's side mirror.
A second video showed the car racing down the street as the protesters clung on for dear life before it abruptly came to a stop, throwing them to the ground.
The female protester was knocked unconscious and suffered a cut to the head. She was transported to the hospital and officials said her injuries were not life-threatening.
Pedigo said police are still working to identify the man and woman inside the car that fled the scene.
Shocking video shows the moment a woman was struck by a car that then sped off with her on the hood following a protest over the attack on Booker
A man named Rodney Root posted a brief clip of the incident on Twitter which shows the woman on the hood and a man holding onto the driver's-side mirror while the car drives away. Witnesses said the protesters had tried to block the car on the street
'They didn't even see me as human': Black activist recounts how a group of white men attacked him and allegedly threatened to 'get a noose' at a lake in Indiana as FBI launches investigation
!['They didn't even see me as human': Black activist recounts how a group of white men attacked him and allegedly threatened to 'get a noose' at a lake in Indiana as FBI launches investigation]()
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July 09, 2020
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