A retired US Marine declared his support for Black Lives Matter by kneeling in full dress uniform near the Utah State Capitol in a one-man protest with a piece of tape over his mouth with the words ‘I can’t breathe’ written on it.
The Marine Corps veteran, Todd Winn, drew the attention of passersby as he stood for three hours in the middle of the day in Salt Lake City, when the temperatures reached 99 degrees Fahrenheit.
It was so hot during his protest Friday that Winn’s dress leather shoes began to melt, according to KUTV-TV.
A local photographer, Robin Pendergrast, snapped photos of Winn.
Winn, whose uniform shows he earned two Purple Hearts, was also holding up a sign which read: ‘Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice, Countless Others.’
The sign also demanded ‘accountability for failed TTPs’ and ‘EOF abuse.’
In security-related matters, TTP is the acronym for ‘tactics, techniques, and procedures.’
EOF is the acronym for ‘escalation of force’ – which is presumably a criticism of American police forces who have been filmed on social media in recent weeks injuring protesters and demonstrators.
Katie Steck, Winn’s girlfriend, said that Friday was a ‘day of silence’ for him.
‘He has been very angered and appalled by the injustices that have been happening,’ she told KSL-TV.
According to Steck, Winn was wounded in 2005, when a roadside bomb detonated while he was doing a tour of duty in Iraq.
As a result, Winn sustained traumatic brain injuries that left him with chronic fatigue.
Steck said Winn wanted to demonstrate how one can protest while still being patriotic.
‘Seeing a lot of things that have happened, that’s not the kind of America he wants,’ Steck said, and not the kind of America he’d sacrificed for.
‘That’s not what he wants to represent.’
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Source: Daily Mail
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