Man pepper sprays protesters supporting Palestine, including a Fresno State student

Fresno Police are looking for a man who pepper sprayed protesters supporting Palestine on Saturday night.

Ahmad Qutami, 20, captured photos of a man who he says smiled and laughed while pepper spraying him and other protesters near River Park. Approximately 200 people had attended the demonstration.

Qutami, who is a student at Fresno State, said he was in the front passenger seat of a car with three others when the man, who also was in a car and had a woman with him, rolled down his window and the parties exchanged words.

Qutami said he and his friends had been driving back and forth near the intersection of Blackstone and Nees avenues and waving a Palestinian flag when their vehicle came to a stop next to the man’s car because of a red light around 7 p.m.

That’s when words were exchanged, and soon after, the man started pepper spraying the four protesters in the car, according to Qutami.

Fresno Police said officers had little details of the incident but said the confrontation started from claims that a flag hit a vehicle.

Qutami had a different take.

“He rolled down his window and first started yelling, ‘F all of Palestine’ and, ‘We don’t support Palestine,’” Qutami said. “Then he started cussing us out.

“And then, he just pulled out the pepper spray. Got all of us. Got me and my whole face. In my mouth. My whole neck was red. People were saying he pepper sprayed another vehicle, too.”

Fresno Police didn’t immediately have a description of the man or his vehicle, aside from being a blue sedan.

But Qutami’s photos posted on social media show an older man with a goatee driving a Hyundai sedan.

Qutami said police arrived shortly after the incident but pulled over the wrong vehicle, stopping a car that was directly behind the pepper sprayer’s vehicle.

The with the pepper spray, meanwhile, drove off.

“I did not expect anything like this to happen,” said Qutami, who filed a police report. “We all came out here a few years ago to protest and show our support of Palestine and nothing like this happened.

“I hope they catch him.”

Fresno Police said there was not immediate information that indicated the pepper spray incident was a hate crime or related to the protest itself.

Approximately 200 protesters had gathered to voice their concerns and frustrations of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians.

Among the latest events is Israel’s air strikes in Gaza, which were viewed by Israelis as retaliation for Hamas missile attacks.

A top Hamas leader warned Israel that it still has not used all of their forces at their disposal.

In addition to the pepper spray incident in Fresno, a small fight broke out between two protesters but was broken up quickly.

Saturday’s protest was a planned demonstration and organized earlier in the week.

There’s also a candlelight vigil and protest scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Blackstone and Nees location.

Saturday was the latest of demonstrations held at River Park that turned contentious.

In October, three people were stabbed near the same location during a demonstration in support of Armenia.

A man had become upset that protesters were blocking traffic and pulled out a bat to swing at the crowd.

But after people in the crowd stopped the man from swinging the bat, he pulled out a knife and attacked protesters, according to Fresno Police.

This story was originally published May 15, 2021 at 9:59 PM.