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HomeShow19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist found dead

19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist found dead

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Daily US Times: A Black Lives Matter activist from Florida has been found dead one week after she went missing. Her age was 19.

On Saturday, Tallahassee police found the bodies of Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salau, along with 75-year-old Victoria Sims, on Saturday and police started an investigation as homicides.

Police arrested a 49-year-old suspect Aaron Glee.

Salau was last seen on June 6. Earlier that day, she’d tweeted that she was sexually assaulted.

Her friend Chynna Carney confirmed the Twitter account belonged to Salau.

According to Salau’s tweets, she had left some belongings at a church where she was seeking shelter and a man who’d offered her a ride to recollect the items later molested her while she tried to sleep.

Wheather Glee is the same man Salau reported had molested her, is not clear yet.

Sims was a longtime AARP volunteer. Her family declined to make any comment on her death.

Carney and Salau had been friends since before high school. The 19-year-old taught herself to paint, sew and design her own clothes.

Salau is found dead in a time when the US experiencing a huge Black Lives Matter protests.

Carney said: “She had so many dreams and she never gave up,” describing Salau as a sad person with the “happiest soul.”

Source: Alina Amador

Salau was always a vocal supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“When she started protesting with us, that was the happiest I’ve ever seen her,” Carney said.

Footage of Salau surfaced which shows she was speaking at a protest in honor of Tony McDade, a trans man who was killed by Tallahassee police last month.

She said in the clip she doesn’t want to divide people, but unite them against police brutality committed against black Americans.

Salau says in the clip: “At the end of the day, I cannot take my f***g skin color off, Everywhere I f***g go, I am profiled whether I like it or not… So guess what? I’m gonna die by it. I’m going to die by my f***g skin. You cannot take my f***g blackness away from me.”

Her passion endeared her to photographer Alina Amador, who frequently recruited Salau to model for her.

Amador said: “Her beauty was so radiant, and modeling for her was so effortless. She was very calm and gentle.”

Carney said her friend’s death has motivated her to fight for black women like Toyin.

She said she will never stop protesting and will fight for her and for black people and people of color ’til I’m dead.”

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