#Black Oklahoma pastor claims white anti-mask protesters assaulted him

A black Oklahoma pastor said a group of anti-face mask protesters — most of them white — assaulted him as he peacefully called for reparations for the victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre this week.

The trouble started when the Rev. Robert Turner, the pastor of Historic Vernon Chapel A.M.E. Church, approached Tulsa City Hall, where a group of protesters had congregated, video posted to his YouTube account shows.

As Turner started to speak on a megaphone, a woman approached and appeared to say something to him, but he continued his speech.

Then, the protesters erupted into cheers of, “USA! USA!” to drown him out.

“Hey sweetie, let us have our voice,” said one woman, who touched his arm before putting her hand over the megaphone to block the sound.

A man stood in front of him asking, “How much do you need?” while waving dollar bills around and trying to hand them to him.

Another man showed him a credit card and asked, “Do you take credit cards for reparations?”

Yet another protester is shown putting an open umbrella in the pastor’s face to block any view of him.

One protester held a sign with the large message “I CAN’T BREATHE,” above the smaller words, “with a mask.”

“I can’t breathe” was the final statement uttered by George Floyd and Eric Garner, two unarmed black men killed by police whose deaths have inspired ongoing protests.

Other signs said, “Fire Fauci,” “My rights don’t end where your fear begins” and “Masks are a symbol of the false security we hide behind when we let the media and politicians dictate our medical freedom!”

In a statement obtained by The Tulsa World, Turner said he “felt emotions that were unlike anything I have ever known” when he approached the protest.

“My very presence was the catalyst for an onslaught of anger and hate from my fellow children of God,” Turner said. “I now have a deeper sympathy for civil rights activists like Vivian Malone, James Meredith, The Little Rock Nine, and countless others.”

“Today, people shouted ‘USA’ at us as though it was an attack — as though the United States was no place for Black men seeking justice,” the pastor added. “It is a sad day in Tulsa, but I will not be deterred in this fight. By God as my helper, I will endure this fiery furnace, and we as a people will make it to the promised land. Our people will know justice.”

He said that he plans to press for assault charges, but the outlet could not immediately confirm whether a police report was filed.

A Tulsa Police Department dispatcher told the paper a complaint was made around that time about someone disrupting a protest. Officers showed up, but left within a few minutes, according to the dispatcher.

Debbie Robertson, an administrator for the Facebook group “Tulsa Citizens Against Mask Mandates,” told the outlet in a message that “[Turner) turned his megaphone to full blast and verbally assaulted all of us.”

“He said all whites are racist and must pay him reparations,” she said. “He was so loud we could not hear our people speaking on our small sound system.”

“We were peacefully protesting,” Robertson added. “He could have chosen a different corner but deliberately walked right into our crowd and started all that. I tried to talk to him.”