Police: Man Rammed Woman With Car at Antivax Protest

Hundreds of millions of Americans have gotten quietly vaccinated against COVID. But for many more, vaccines and vaccine mandates are a flashpoint for argument, sparking protests around the world on either side of the dispute, and prompting people with platforms like Fox News’ Neil Cavuto to weigh in. California has several vaccine mandates in place, including one for eating inside a restaurant and one requiring COVID shots for all students. It’s basically the opposite of Texas, which has banned such mandates. An anti-mandate protest turned violent Saturday in Palmdale, California. Police say William Aslaksen, 64, came across the protest and got into an argument with some of the people demonstrating, the Los Angeles Times reports. After the altercation, witnesses say he drove into the crowd, injuring one woman.

Aslaksen was arrested about an hour and a half after driving a Jeep Wrangler into a crowd of people gathered on a sidewalk. He allegedly struck a woman in her 40s who was taken to a hospital for injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening, Bakersfield.com reports. Aslaksen is scheduled to go to court Tuesday, NBC News reports. It’s not the first time a vaccine dispute turned into a hit-and-run—last spring a Tennessee woman drove through a vaccination site yelling "No vaccine!" (More vaccine mandate stories.)