A Black Lives Matter activist reportedly shot himself on the steps of the Ohio Statehouse Monday (Feb. 8), days after attending the 2016 NAACP Awards in Los Angeles, with his mother. Prior to taking his life, 23-year-old MarShawn McCarrel left a final Facebook posts that read “My demons won today. I’m sorry.”
Reports ABC News:
State Highway Patrol officials tell the Columbus Dispatch that the man shot himself outside the front door of the Statehouse on Monday evening.
Lt. Craig Cvetan (suh-VEHT’-ehn) says the 23-year-old man from the Columbus suburb of Franklin Township was pronounced dead at the scene. He says the man was not a state employee.
Cvetan says it’s unclear why the man killed himself.
Authorities say nobody saw the shooting, but the man was seen on Statehouse grounds just before the gunshot.
McCarrel, a resident of Columbus, was among the young group of activist speaking out against police brutality after the shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson. “People have become so conditioned to hatred and racial bias that as a society we need to ‘unlearn’ what we have been conditioned to think,” he said in an interview last year. “We have to break those walls down before we can build a stronger society.”
Additionally, McCarrel organized local protests, founded the youth mentorship group, Pursuing Our Dreams, and homeless advocacy organization called, Feed the Streets.
Hit the flip for McCarrel’s final social media posts, and more.
—
Photos: FB
