An SUV carrying Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds hit a Black Lives Matter protester who was trying to block the vehicle Tuesday as she was leaving an event in northern Iowa, but the Iowa State Patrol blamed the protester and said there was little contact and the protester did not appear to be hurt. The state patrol confirmed the SUV hit the protester, who was among about two dozen BLM activists who had traveled 90 miles from Des Moines to Ackley. Members of the group weren't allowed into the event at Family Traditions Meat, a small processor, so they gathered at the end of a driveway and tried to block the governor's SUV, the AP reports. Jaylen Cavil, a BLM organizer, told the Des Moines Register that he stood in the driveway in the hopes that Reynolds would roll down a window and talk with protesters.
“I was standing right in front of the car and I just stood there. I was like, ‘I’m going to stand here. Surely the driver of the governor is not going to hit me with her car. This is the governor, my governor, who’s supposed to be representing me. I’m sure that her car is not going to intentionally hit me.’ I was wrong,” he said. Cavil said the impact spun him around and lifted him onto the SUV's hood, but he wasn't hurt. “I 100% think they intentionally hit me,” he said. “There’s no way that this driver could not see me right in front of his car.” Afterward, Cavil said an Iowa State Patrol trooper began yelling at him and called him an idiot. Another state trooper was driving the SUV. A state patrol rep says it was Cavil's fault for "intentionally stepping in front of the slowly moving vehicle." BLM activists are trying to convince Reynolds, a Republican, to quickly end the state's controversial voting rules for felons.
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