Man paralyzed after fall from Oklahoma overpass at BLM rally, he says. Now he’s suing

As a father of multi-racial children, Thomas Knight says he felt compelled to attend a Black Lives Matter rally when nationwide protests erupted in response to the police killing of George Floyd.

While rallying against police violence at the May 31, 2020 rally in Tulsa, he says a crowd surge knocked him off an overpass and he plunged 20-feet down, leading to his partial paralysis.

Now, Knight is suing the city of Tulsa, the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, some of its employees and a driver, who was not identified, seen driving into the crowd.

In his lawsuit filed on Feb. 14 in the Northern District of Oklahoma federal court, Knight and his legal team blame his fall on the “deliberate indifference” and negligence of those agencies.

Knight “was exercising his constitutional right of free speech and assembly, in furtherance of his civic duty to create a better world for his family, his children, for everyone,” his attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “Now he will never be able to stand up and walk for change.”

“His injuries were eminently preventable and should never have happened,” they continued. “Had the (city and state highway patrol) taken even the most basic of precautions, (Knight) would not have lost the use of his legs and his suffering, and his family’s suffering, could have been spared.”

Spokespersons with the city of Tulsa and the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety said they do not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit says Knight was one of thousands who attended the rally, which was planning to travel through John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park near Interstate 244. As the rallygoers approached the park, the lawsuit says Tulsa police officers funneled them onto the interstate’s access ramp.

“Rallygoers eventually spilled out onto the westbound lane of travel on I-244,” it says, and Oklahoma Highway Patrol was called to stop interstate traffic and protect the attendees and vehicles.

Video from KJRH on the day of the rally shows hundreds of people on the overpass as vehicle traffic begins to backup.

“Despite hundreds of Rallygoers traveling onto the highway, OHP troopers allowed a Dodge pickup truck hauling a large horse trailer driven by John Doe Driver to pass through the barricade and to drive through the Rallygoers,” the filed document says. “While John Doe Driver was attempting to drive through the Rally, he brandished a gun to intimidate the Rallygoers.”

The driver was heard saying “you get out of my way” before driving “through and over people,” according to Knight’s legal team.

“You look back and you see the giant trailer coming and you turn to run and there’s kind of nowhere to go,” a witness said, according to the lawsuit. “The sounds were terrible … anger and screaming and after it passed, you heard people writhing.”

At that time, Knight says he was pushed off the overpass and onto the city street below. He broke multiple bones in his spine, the lawsuit says, and he is now “paralyzed from the waist down” and requires a wheelchair to get around.

Knight is seeking at least $75,000 to cover his injury, medical expenses, pain and suffering, loss of wages and other damages.

Floyd, 46, died while in police custody on May 25, 2020 and his death sparked an avalanche of protests across the nation. He died after now-fired Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than 9 minutes, as three other officers chose not to intervene.

A 17-year-old bystander took video of the incident, in which Floyd can be heard saying, “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe.”

During a trial that started on March 8, 2021 and ended on April 20, a jury of seven women and five men found Chauvin guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

In June, Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison.

This story was originally published February 17, 2022 at 8:01 AM with the headline "Man paralyzed after fall from Oklahoma overpass at BLM rally, he says. Now he’s suing."