This past weekend, the Republican party club on the Upper East Side decided to invite a far-right agitator and his brownshirts to address their Park Avenue membership. Then, as this group was leaving the club, they decided to beat random passersby and some counter-protesters.
A brawl outside a Republican club in Manhattan involving a far-right group and anti-fascist activists spurred calls over the weekend for an investigation into the violence and whether the police handled it properly. Some Democratic politicians, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, also criticized the club for inviting the founder of the far-right group, the Proud Boys.
Mr. Cuomo said he has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the violence that accompanied Friday’s appearance at the Metropolitan Republican Club by Gavin McInnes, a right-wing provocateur. He also assigned a State Police hate crimes unit to assist with the New York Police Department’s investigation of the fighting, which he linked to President Trump. [...]
Videos show a heavy police presence as Mr. McInnes left the event. Dozens of counterprotesters gathered behind a police barricade across the street. Mr. McInnes said someone lobbed a bottle of urine at him, and he is later seen on video getting out of a car and drawing a sword from its sheath above his head before the police forced him back inside. — www.nytimes.com/...
It is illegal to carry any knife over 4 inches in length on the streets in NYC, far less to brandish it. And McInnes had that sword for a specific purpose.
Just prior to the fight, the Proud Boys hosted an event at the Republican club to “discuss historical context and offer perspective on the environment that surrounded Otoya Yamaguchi," an extremist right-wing Japanese activist who murdered a politician with whom he disagreed using a sword, then killed himself, "in 1960's Japan.” Tickets were sold for $10 to $20. — www.newsweek.com/...
So get this, not only is this guy waving around a sword in NYC, he did it after an event where he lionized the murder of a socialist politician by a right-wing fascist. Then he sets his brownshirts loose on the Upper East Side.
The NYPD has posted several plaintive tweets, asking for information about the violence that occurred afterwards.
The NYPD had a heavy presence at the event, but officers stood by as McInnes’s neo-brownshirts attacked counter-protesters and bystanders. The SPLC notes that McInnes has been part of white nationalist groups for many years. McInness, who is also the co-founder of Vice Media says:
MCINNES: So I get there and there’s a mob of screaming lunatics and the cops have been there all day. Tons of cops, I have a lot of support in the NYPD and I very much appreciate that, the boys in blue. — www.mediamatters.org/...
Perhaps the NYPD someone should look into this claim of support within the department, and the impact it’s having on the NYPD’s investigation.
Because it looks like NYC Antifa did the NYPD’s job for them, in a couple of days:
There are more tweets.
— @subirgrewal