That elusive white supremacist (not)

I wrote here yesterday morning about the tanker truck driver who drove into the crowd of “protesters” walking north on Highway 35W through downtown Minneapolis on Sunday evening. Minnesota House Majority Leader Winkler couldn’t wait to declare that he had finally found the elusive white nationalist sought by him and his ilk in the maelstrom of destruction that hit us last week.

According to the preliminary investigation, however, the authorities believe that the driver intended no harm. Indeed, no “protesters” were hit by the truck. If he had intended harm, he
could have done a lot. He lawfully entered the highway in the normal course of business. He had no foreknowledge of the protesters, who shouldn’t have been walking down an interstate highway on Sunday afternoon.

The current Star Tribune story on the incident dated this morning adds that the driver “remained jailed on suspicion of assault but had not been charged.” Those who assaulted the driver remain at large. They aren’t even being sought.

At his press conference yesterday, Governor Walz declared the driver “stupid” for speeding and glorified the crowd that pummeled him for protecting him. One of the protesters can be heard on audio of the incident calling off the crowd that was pummeling the driver. Walz weaves fairy tales for dummies. It’s his modus operandi.

One has to make it to the end of the local CBS affiliate’s story on this incident to find a powerful testimonial to the driver from the (black) customer he had just served:

WCCO has learned the driver was returning from making a run from the Lyn 36 refuel station on Lyndale.

“That gentleman was the only gentleman in his whole company who wanted to deliver gas to a black-owned station that he delivers to 14 times a week, so if he was so-called racist like they said it was, I don’t think he’d be delivering to us,” Lonnie McQuirter said. “He was feeding his family, that’s what he was part of. Just like what we’re doing, trying to feed our family.”

I have posted the video of WCCO’s report below. Let’s hear it for tanker truck driver Bogdan Vechirko. Governor Walz owes Vechirko an apology, but that’s not Walz’s style. Hit and run is more like it.

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