Trucker who drove through George Floyd protesters is charged - NBC News

MINNEAPOLIS — A truck driver who drove into a large crowd of protesters on a bridge in Minneapolis following the killing of George Floyd was charged Thursday with two criminal counts.

Vechirko, 35, drove onto the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River as thousands of people protested the death of Floyd, who died six days earlier in the custody of Minneapolis police.

When Vechirko saw the crowd on the bridge, he “relied on his professional instinct and training to avoid a hard brake that could have jackknifed the truck and could have seriously injured or killed thousands of people, and instead slowed his vehicle while maneuvering through the parted crowd,” his attorney Mark Solheim, told the newspaper