"They shot me four times already. I already got hurt and I got hit with a baton," Sampson said while live on Instagram.
Insecure actor Kendrick Sampson was hit by rubber bullets fired by LAPD while protesting George Floyd’s death in Los Angeles on Saturday.
While live on his Instagram during the protest, officers could be seen firing rubber bullets at the actor and other protestors. Sampson could also be seen backing away from police while being hit repeatedly by an officer's baton. The incident was also captured by a CNN broadcast.
According to Sampson, he was hit four times by rubber bullets. He showed viewers his bleeding lip, attributing that to the baton, and injuries on his arm and chest caused by rubber bullets.
"Y’all ain’t see no police fucking up white folks when they took guns to the statehouse," the actor continued. "Y’all didn’t see police attacking white folks, beating em up with batons, shooting them with rubber bullets when they brought guns to fucking state houses. We came up here with no weapons, with masks. And we’re the ones who are not peaceful."
"We did an event together, peaceful, powerful, talking about defunding the police, talking about building power in our communities and what that really looks like. That’s what we were doing. We marched to the intersection at Fairfax, we were there for a bit. We closed it out with a chant," Sampson said in his video.
Sampson was in West Hollywood on Saturday afternoon for a demonstration his Build Power initiative co-organized with Black Lives Matter at Pan Pacific Park. Protests in Los Angeles continued to move into the city's Fairfax District, where protestors clashed with police.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a curfew for downtown Los Angeles following Saturday's protests, saying in a press conference, "I'm asking all of Los Angeles to take a deep breath and step back for a moment."
Similar demonstrations have taken place across the United States to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a police officer knelt on his neck in Minneapolis.
Following Sampson's series of video posts on the protests, HBO (of which Insecure airs on) tweeted a quote by novelist James Baldwin: "Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind."
"We stand with our black colleagues, employees, fans, actors, storytellers — and all affected by senseless violence. #BlackLivesMatter," the tweet added.
Singer Halsey also went live on Instagram from the same protest, sharing information on that platform and her Twitter account. Yungblud, Machine Gun Kelly, Tinashe and actor Travon Free also marched in Los Angeles.
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