On Saturday, a Minneapolis mother confronted Black Lives Matter activists who had gathered to protest the fatal police shooting of Andrew “Tekle” Sundberg, who attacked her and her children. Viral video shows the mother, Arabella Foss-Yarbrough, desperately explaining to protesters that Sundberg “tried to kill me in front of my kids” before he was stopped by police, but the BLM protesters just told her to “shut up.”
“You guys are celebrating his life. This is not okay,” Foss-Yarbrough cries out in the viral video, shared on Twitter by reporter Deevon Rahming. The video been viewed more than 4.5 million times as of Monday afternoon.
“This is not a George Floyd situation. George Floyd was unarmed. He was unarmed. This is not okay,” she adds.
As the distressed mother confronts the protesters, someone can be heard yelling at her, “You’re alive.”
“This is not okay. My kids have to deal with this and probably have a mental illness now because they almost lost their lives,” Foss-Yarbrough continues. “There’s bullet holes in my kitchen because he sat in the f-cking hallway watching my move.”
“I wish it never happened either,” she says in response to something yelled from the crowd of protesters. “Now I don’t have a place to call home. I can’t sleep at night. This is not okay. This is not okay. Just go home. Go home!”
The protesters repeatedly tell the mother to “shut up” before a black woman in the group walks up to her and demands, “Get your ass in the f-cking car,” referring to Foss-Yarbrough’s nearby vehicle.
“You think it’s okay to get in my face. My kid is in the car. My black kid is in the car. He tried to kill me in front of my kids. He tried to kill me in front of my kids,” responds the mother, who is of black, white and Native descent, according to the New York Post.
The protesters had been outside the apartment complex for days before Foss-Yarbrough told them to leave. On Thursday evening, dozens of people gathered to hold a candlelight vigil mourning the gunman’s death, in addition to laying flowers and writing his name on the sidewalk, Fox News reported.
Rahming also shared photos of the interior of Foss-Yarbrough’s bullet hole-riddled home.
“Arabella Yarbrough says she thought she and her 2 kids were going to die Wed. night, after she says Tekle Sundberg fired these shots through her apt. She says she called police. Sundberg was shot and killed by MPD ending a 6hr standoff,” he tweeted.
The Post reported that Foss-Yarbrough called the police last Wednesday night after Sundberg allegedly fired into her apartment. A six-hour standoff with police eventually ended when Sundberg was fatally shot. A pistol with an extended magazine and multiple bullet casings were found in his apartment.
Sundberg’s parents were present when Foss-Yarbrough confronted the protesters.
“I wish I could wrap my arms around her and tell her I’m so sorry,” Cindy Sundberg said. “I’m so sorry she had to experience that, I’m so sorry for her pain.”
“Tekle was an imperfect human as we are all imperfect humans and he did not deserve to be picked off like an animal from a rooftop,” his mother added.
