German trucker rams into climate protester blocking intersection, drags him to side of road
A truck driver struck a climate protester with his vehicle as the activist sat in a busy roadway blocking traffic in Stralsund, Germany, earlier this month.
Video of the encounter posted online shows protesters sitting directly in front of the truck with a poster between them when the angry driver steps out of the truck’s cab and violently throws two of them aside.
After shoving one to the ground, he gets behind the wheel and steps on the gas pedal, pushing one of the men forward a few feet before he stops the truck, the July 12 footage shows.
Six activists with the “Last Generation” climate action group were involved in the protest and two of them reportedly glued themselves to the street to make it difficult for others to remove them, according to German media reports.
The group was protesting the government’s plans to build liquefied natural gas terminals off the Baltic Sea coast.
Traffic backed up in both directions on the Heinrich-Heine-Ring — used by 20,000 drivers daily — seemingly causing the trucker to grow irate.
After he struck the one demonstrator, he got out and dragged him to the side of the road and then sped off past the protest, Ostsee Zeitung reported.
Police arrived at the scene soon after and calmed growing tensions, including removing the two glue-down protesters.
The truck driver is being investigated for the violent encounter.
In a similar incident, a woman dubbed a “brutal blond” dragged a climate change activist off the road by her hair.
