Multiple protesters who had gathered in Riverside to participate in a demonstration over police brutality were hit by a car in Riverside Saturday evening, authorities said.
Investigators responded to the area of Main Street and Mission Inn Avenue at around 6:30 p.m. to a report that a vehicle, possibly a BMW, had run into one or multiple pedestrians in the street, a Riverside Police Department dispatcher told CNN.
Protesters had blocked the roadway when the vehicle tried to make its way through the crowd, hitting two females in the process.
One of the women who was struck said the driver sped up before the collision.
“He sped up to us, acting like he was going to hit us,” she told KTLA. “But no one thought he was really going to hit us, and that’s when he did hit us. And he just kept speeding off.”
A second woman said at one point, she ended up on the roof of the male driver’s car.
“I was on the roof of his car and then hit by his rear view mirror or something,” the woman said, adding that she was very sore.
Both had their feet run over by the vehicle, according to Riverside police Lt. Julian Hutzler. They declined medical attention and were not taken to a hospital.
Approximately 40 people had surrounded the car during the incident, and the driver sped off, likely because they got nervous, according to Hutzler.
Police closed off streets in the immediate area as they searched for the driver.
The protest in Riverside was one of a series of nationwide protests on Saturday over the recent grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York that cleared two white police officers in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
KTLA’s Amrah Khan contributed to this report.
