Progressive Activists Beaten and Hospitalized as Trump-Era Political Violence Intensifies

[Quixote1818]

Two progressive activists were hospitalized Sunday night after being beaten and, in one case, thrown down a flight of stairs at an event hosted by conservative James O'Keefe, a self-styled investigative journalist and an established fraud. Both were released Monday with minor injuries; police have made no arrests.

The violence ensued when Ryan Clayton, who blogs for The Huffington Post, took the mic for questions at a "Friends of Abe" event in midtown Manhattan. Clayton runs Americans Take Action, which recently took part in a counter-sting operation against O'Keefe's Project Veritas. The former had begun singing before he was identified, grabbed from behind and put in a chokehold. "I felt a pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, and then there was nothing left to pop," he said. "There was a moment I thought, 'Oh God, this is how I die.' Last night was the most terrifying night of my life."

Clayton was sent tumbling down a staircase before his fall was broken by a man standing mid-way down. He claims he was kicked in the head.

Jason Charter, the other activist injured in the melee, reports that he too was assaulted and that his camera, phone, wallet, glasses and tie were all stolen. "Somebody looked at my neck tie and I was thrown to the ground," he said. "I had a foot placed on my neck and held down. My lower right abdomen is very sore from the kicks."

More: http://www.alternet.org/activism/progressive-activists-beaten-and-hospitalized-trump-era-political-violence-intensifies

[rickford66]

1. Right out of the early NAZI playbook.

Everyone should read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or any other well written/documented account of the times. If the judicial systems cannot curtail the lawlessness, we are lost.