Berkeley Teacher On Video Punching Neo-Nazi Supporter At State Capitol Rally
BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- A Berkeley middle school teacher was caught on camera throwing punches during last weekend's neo-Nazi rally at the state Capitol.
the California Highway Patrol are taking a closer at footage from the violent rally.
A YouTube clip shows a man holding a neo-Nazi flag walking near the Capitol and saying he wants to meet the "anti-fascists."
After he sees them, he them calls over. One protester takes his flag, another sprays something at him and that's when the man starts swinging his flag pole at protesters.
Later he walks over to law enforcement standing nearby. That's when Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School teacher and anti neo-Nazi protest organizer Yvette Felarca comes over yelling profanities, telling him to get off the streets.
He holds his hands up and she starts punching at his stomach and then it gets ugly, with law enforcement intervening only after the man is down on the ground.
Later that day Yvette and other protesters were captured on video celebrating on the steps of the Capitol.
Yvette can be heard saying, "We beat their a**ess today" and another protester was captured on a Periscope video saying, "See what's been getting me, is the cops actually let us get to them. They've never done that in the past. They usually are accosting us before we even try."
On Sunday, Yvette told reporters, "So we have a right to self-defense, we have an obligation to that and that is why we have to shut them down by any means necessary."
Yvette told a reporter, "The Nazis are the violent ones, we have a right to defend ourselves."
But the video suggests Yvette also went on the offensive at one point.
With both sides blooded and bruised, police and the California Highway Patrol are still investigating the incident. There were multiple people injured on both sides.
Yvette said Sunday that what she did was in self-defense and has not responded to a KPIX5 request for comment on the video which shows her punching one of the Neo-Nazi supporters.