A Black Lives Matter protester in Arkansas said he carried a flamethrower as a "deterrent" if things got out of control during a demonstration against white supremacy on Sunday.
Quinn Foster, an organizer of the protest in Zinc, Arkansas, told Insider that he had received more than 100 death threats from opponents of the Black Lives Matter movement before the protest. He said white supremacists were trying to normalize their beliefs, existence, and activities in Arkansas.
"I knew that a lot of the white supremacists and militia folks are extremely reliant on gun-powder-based weapons ... I needed something that was going to be a deterrent," Foster told Insider. "It could be readily available as a defensive weapon very quickly if I needed to get people to back up or stop shooting in our direction."
The protest occurred in Zinc, near the compound of the Ku Klux Klan leader Thomas Robb.