Proud Boys On Trial This Week In Manhattan Over Post-Speech Brawl
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - The trial of two members of the Proud Boys will continue this week in a New York courtroom on charges from street violence between the far-right group and anti-fascist activists recorded in October 2018.
Videos posted on YouTube show the clashes between the two groups outside the Metropolitan Republican Club on the Upper East Side.
The clash happened following an appearance by Gavin McInnes, who founded the group which describes themselves as "western chauvinists."
No victims are expected to testify at the trial because the victims are reportedly not cooperating with police.
The Manhattan district attorney's office is expected to rely on video from multiple sources in prosecuting Proud Boys members Maxwell Hare and John Kinsman.
"The primary evidence before the grand jury — and the only evidence of how the physical altercation began — was video evidence," a prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, wrote in a court filing last week.
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Ten members and associates of the Proud Boys were arrested in the days following the clash. Two of them, Hare and Kinsman, are going on trial in Manhattan on charges of riot and attempted assault. Prosecutors are not charging the defendants with assault because the charge requires evidence of injury.
Lawyers for Hare and Kinsman have indicated they may argue that their clients believed they needed to resort to force.
"Antifa's only missing accessory was war paint," the lawyers wrote in one filing. "They gathered and lay in wait in the Upper East Side to aggressively attack the Proud Boys exiting the club."
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal advocacy organization, has designated the all-male Proud Boys as a hate group. McInnes, a Vice Media co-founder, quit the Proud Boys a month after the clash that followed his speech.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)