Will James

Two Black teens had been shot hours earlier.

One of them was dead.

His name was Antonio Mays Jr.

My goal was to try to find witnesses who could tell me what had happened.

People staying at CHOP tell me that they saw a white Jeep driving around erratically.

Antonio Mays Jr.

was in that Jeep.

Witnesses say they heard shots coming from the jeep, and then people inside CHOP shot back.

Protesters thought that whoever was in that white jeep was firing at them, that CHOP was under attack.

I felt really unnerved by the certainty among the people I talked to that protesters had acted in self-defense.

Things just seemed so chaotic on the ground that I didn't know how anyone could be certain of anything.

And the story of what happened seemed to be hardening before my eyes.

I was covering the protests in 2020 as well.

And like Sydney, I was waiting for answers about this shooting.

Why would this Black teenager attack CHOP?

Were protesters gonna step forward and reckon with what happened that night?

And police, were they gonna arrest anyone?

But instead, years passed, and this case faded from public consciousness.

As reporters, we turned our attention to other stories.

The protesters' version of events went pretty much unchallenged.