August 09, 2020 09:25 AM UTC

"Back The Blue" Attacks Black Lives Matter In Fort Collins

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• by: Colorado Pols

Trigger warning: this video depicts another violent attack in Colorado on Black Lives Matter protesters.

UPDATE #2: The Denver Post’s Shelly Bradbury confirms three arrests and one citation issued by police:

A video livestreamed on the Facebook page for a far-right Colorado podcast shows members of the pro-law enforcement crowd walking toward counter protesters in a neighborhood a few blocks away from the main rally at the police station.

The man who livestreamed the video described the police supporters’ actions as “marching” the counter-protesters out of the area. The pro-police demonstrators outnumbered the counter-protesters…

In the video, Fort Collins police officers arrive after about two minutes, when the majority of the violence has ended. The officers are seen putting at least one person in handcuffs.

[FCPD Detective Erin] Feit said the people arrested and cited were aligned with both the pro-police group and the counter-protesters. [Pols emphasis] She did not have the names of those arrested or their charges available but said that information should be released Sunday afternoon.

It’s reassuring to hear that some of the people administering the beatings may be prosecuted in addition to, you know, the victims. We’ll continue to update as more information is released.

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UPDATE: Video from the immediate aftermath of the violence appears to show Fort Collins Police arresting some of the Black Lives Matter protesters–right after those protesters were assaulted in a ditch by a large contingent of white men participating in a “Back The Blue” rally outside FCPD headquarters:

Watch the video of the attack below, then watch this clip of the same protesters you just watched being savagely beaten in a ditch get arrested while the men who administered the beating taunt them.

And then ask yourself how the hell this is happening in our state.

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This is video we were forwarded from several social media sources of an attack yesterday afternoon on a group of protesters in Fort Collins, as competing Black Lives Matter and “Back The Blue” rallies took place at different locations in the city. The violent assault on a group of protesters you can see in the video above reportedly took place just a few blocks from Fort Collins Police Department headquarters, after the BLM protesters were forced back into what looks like an area of open space, pushed down into a ditch of some kind, and beaten by a crew of very large white men–the ones wearing shirts sporting pro-Donald Trump and pro-police attire.

About 20 seconds into the video, just before the assault, local fascist “Proud Boy” leader Louie Huey tells the camera that he is there to “march these commie Antifa bastards out of the neighborhood.” It’s the first we’ve seen of Louie Huey since he showed off his rubber bullet wounds after a night of provocateur violence he participated in early in the George Floyd protests.

There has been very little press coverage of this incident so far, but we expect that to change once this horrific video gets out into the wild. The violence in this clip is much more severe and more prolonged than similarly shocking video out of rural Teller County a few weeks ago showing right-wing protesters attacking a “car caravan” protest. There can be no question from what we’ve seen of who the aggressors were. Despite this, the unconfirmed report we have from yesterday is that just like in Teller County, none of the pro-police protesters you can see assaulting people in this video were arrested.

It’s another outburst of violence for which we’ll be watching to see justice, but not holding our breath. In the meantime, next time somebody tells you how appalled they are by broken windows and graffiti at the Capitol, you have something they need to see.

It’s getting ugly out there, folks.