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19-Year-Old BLM Protester Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau Found Dead One Week After Disappearance

HeadlineJun 16, 2020

In Tallahassee, Florida, police confirmed Monday they found the dead body of 19-year-old African American, Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, who had been missing for just over a week. Nearby, the body of 75-year-old Victoria Sims, a white woman and AARP volunteer, was also found. Toyin Salau was last seen on June 6. She tweeted that same day that a man had sexually assaulted her. A man, Aaron Glee Jr., has been arrested in connection with the two killings. Toyin’s friends and supporters are calling for justice for the activist, who was a regular presence at Black Lives Matter protests. Here she is speaking following the police killing of Tony McDade, a Black transgender man, in Tallahassee last month.

Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau: “Tony McDade was a Black trans man, OK? We’re not doing this — we’re doing this for him. We’re doing this for our brothers and our sisters who got shot, but we’re doing this for every Black person, because, at the end of the day, I cannot take my [bleep] skin color off. I cannot mask this [bleep], OK? Everywhere I [bleep] go, I am profiled, whether I like it or not.”

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