“Tried to scare you”: Producer “almost killed” picketing writers with SUV
Today in Atlanta, producer Ian Woolf (BMF) allegedly tried to run over protesting writers with his SUV, as reported on Twitter by striking writer Brian Egeston (The Game, On a Wing and a Prayer), one of those nearly hit by the vehicle.
The full text of Brian Egeston's open letter to Woolf:
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAN WHO ALMOST KILLED ME ON THE WGA PICKET LINE TODAY. A thread… Dear Mr. Ian Woolf, Welcome to Atlanta. Years ago, forward thinkers and Civil Rights icons labeled our fair town, ‘the city too busy to hate’. What you did today on Hank Aaron Drive and blocks from the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr….was hateful. When you pointed your SUV at me as though it were a weapon and slammed the breaks within six feet of writers, I felt the hate and aggression of scenarios similar to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and others who have been harmed at the hands of hate-filled oppressors. As I marched with the WGA in a peaceful protest, similar to the giants who have walked the very streets where you almost committed manslaughter, you chose to—in your own words— “Tried to scare you.” Mr. Woolf, this scare and intimidation tactic reeks of German Shepards, water hoses, bricks and burning flesh. It reeks of the worst kind of hate. A hate that continually divides us as a people. I would implore you, in hindsight, to consider the ramifications of killing an African-American man in the streets of the city too busy to hate, while being the producer of an African-American TV show, created by an African American man, run by an African-American Man. Mr. Woolf, your actions purveyed a deep generational hate for us. And that, sir, is a travesty for which you must be held accountable. If not by your superiors and peers, then by the people of Atlanta because the South will have something to say about what you did today. Should you choose to remain in our city, where I will remind you that you are a guest, I beg of you to lead with love and refrain from being a drum major for hate and potential manslaughter. I pray God’s grace and mercy over your life. Brian Egeston Writer
