Video on social media shows a man in a blue shirt apparently sucker punching a woman in the face when pro-Trump rallies broke down on Saturday in Berkeley, California. Witnesses say they’ve identified him as Nathan Damigo, who founded the white supremacist “Identity Evopa.” When LawNewz.com reached out to his group for comment, they seemed to confirm it’s really him in the video, but denied it was a sucker punch.
You can see the incident itself in the footage above. The woman, ostensibly an anti-Trump protester in black clothes and a red bandanna, appears at the 0:31 mark, and is attacked soon after.
Here are more images of the Trump supporting white supremacist Nathan Damigo, the coward who sucker punched a WOMAN in Berkeley today pic.twitter.com/j6mkNHfhH6
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) April 16, 2017
One Twitter user sent an excerpt of the video to an unverified account in the name of Berkeley chief of police Andrew Greenwood. There was a response.
@girlsreallyrule @berkeleypolice Thank you for the information; I’ve passed it to our folks for their follow-on investigations stemming from today’s actions.
— BPD Chief Greenwood (@BerkeleyPDChief) April 16, 2017
We reached out to the Berkeley Police Department to verify if the account really belongs to him, and if there really is an investigation.
In a profile, The Southern Poverty Law Center said Damigo became a white nationalist while serving five years in prison for robbing a cab driver who he believed to be Iraqi.
We reached out to Identity Evopa for their side of the story. “Hello, I’m a reporter for Law Newz. Witnesses claim Nathan Damigo sucker punched a woman in the face. Please provide comment,” we said, and linked to a Raw Story article that initially covered the story.
A spokesman quickly responded, and he actually didn’t deny it’s Damigo in the footage. Here’s the statement:
a) It wasn’t a “sucker punch” — she was in the midst of the fight, facing him.
b) In a since-deleted Facebook post, she claimed that she was headed to the event to collect “Nazi scalps”. So, in her own words, she was there to participate in political violence.
Good luck with your journalism career. Perhaps you’ll begin covering real issues at some point, like why hordes of people clad in all black have been consistently using violence to shut down free speech.
All the best,
Reinhard Wolff
Police said they arrested at least 20 people on Saturday after pro-Trump rallies broke down in violence between the president’s supporters, and critics.
[Screengrab via We Are Change]
