Last Updated on June 2, 2020
Video footage shows young men who gave the thumbs-up gesture to rioters going into shock and pleading, “We’re on your side!” after bricks are hurled through their windows, smashing them open.
The video shows music playing in the background, as a man films the rioters marching from an upstairs window while flashing the thumbs-up gesture, followed by a raised closed fist fist in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters.
Moments later, the music is drowned by the thuds of hard objects being hurled against the window, and the glass unceremoniously shatters as the men in the apartment gasp, “What are you… we’re on your side!”
After the second “We’re on your side,” the second window shatters with even more explosive force than the first.
One of the men approaches the newly destroyed windows and shouts, “Holy sh*t! We’re on your side! We’re on your f*ckin side! What the f*ck? What the f*ck?”
The video quickly went viral after being posted to Twitter with the caption, “This is so nuts. Sad, but kind of hilarious.”
This is so nuts. Sad, but kind of hilarious pic.twitter.com/9fHBDX8FP9
— Ami Horowitz (@AmiHorowitz) June 2, 2020
Viewers of the footage mocked the naivete of the frat members whose windows were smashed.
“This is the real-life equivalent of posting a black screen on social media,” one user wrote in reference to the Black Lives Matter Blackout Tuesday trend.
This is the real-life equivalent of posting a black screen on social media.
— Jewish Conservative Lion (@_c_onservative) June 2, 2020
“Still on their side?” another queried rhetorically.
https://twitter.com/FinanceBlue/status/1267908411280195587
Solidarity Stones
— Bisque Enthusiast (@Ferdyfernandie) June 2, 2020
— MEMIS (@MemIngenjoeren) June 2, 2020
https://twitter.com/JamesMerone/status/1267914527846383619
In an entirely different response to rioting, a looter was shot dead in Philadelphia by an armed gun store owner this week.
The deadly failed robbery reportedly happened at Firing Line Inc when the owner was keeping guard of the store following an attempted break in on Sunday night.
The owner saw a small group of armed robbers attempt to make it into the store on the premises’ surveillance camera and heard them coming up the store stairs before he dealt with the intruders.
One man was shot and pronounced dead at the scene while the others dispersed. A man, believed to be part of the armed group of burglars, was hospitalized in the area with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.
Speaking with Fox29, Chief Inspector Scott Smalls said: “One of the individuals that broke into the property, pointed a handgun at him.
“And that’s when the store owner fired his own weapon — striking the one perpetrator at least one time in the head and he collapsed, dropping his gun between his legs.”
The riots across the United States have continued to evoke a polarized response on social media, with many celebrities and large corporations taking the side of the protesters and offering to post bail money for those arrested.