Patrick Hutchinson says he carried an injured white man to safety Saturday during a protest in London so that the movement could “avoid catastrophe.”
Patrick Hutchinson, the black man seen carrying an injured white man to safety during a chaotic scene at protests in London on Saturday told CNN he did it to avoid catastrophe. https://t.co/O17df0dJWM pic.twitter.com/gKoukqhE80
— CNN (@CNN) June 15, 2020
Hutchinson, who was attending his first Black Lives Matter protest, rescued an injured protester, CNN reported, and said that he didn’t want the protests to be “lost in one moment of violence.” (RELATED: United Nations Human Rights Body Will Examine Police Brutality And Racism In The US)
Hutchinson spotted the man in a fetal position on some stairs surrounded by protesters, according to CCN. He then picked up the man to take him to police while his friends helped to protect them.
“I am carrying him, my friends are protecting myself and the man on my shoulder,” Hutchinson said to CNN. “He was still receiving blows, you can feel people trying to hit him. There were people trying to protect him at the same time carried him over to the police and I said here you are.”
Hutchinson said that a police officer thanked him for saving the man, per CNN. “My real focus was on avoiding a catastrophe, all of a sudden the narrative changes into ‘Black Lives Matters, Youngsters Kill Protesters.’ That was the message we were trying to avoid,” said Hutchinson.
Hutchinson said supporting the protests was a “no-brainer” and that he wants to see the world have “equality for everyone,” CNN reported.
Clashes between protestors and police in London escalated on Saturday, causing 23 officers to be injured and over 100 people to be arrested, according to the Guardian.