Proud Boys Started UES Street Brawl, New Video Reveals

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Members of the far-right group the Proud Boys are now believed to have instigated a massive street fight that broke out on the Upper East Side after the group's leader spoke at the Metropolitan Republican Club, according to prosecutors and new security video unearthed by the New York Times.

Two Proud Boys can be seen charging at anti-fascist protesters before the protesters ever threw a bottle that supposedly started the brawl, according to security camera footage acquired by the Times. The Times identified the attackers as Maxwell Hare and Geoffrey Young.

Hare, Young and eight other Proud Boys members have been arrested and charged with assault and rioting since the Oct. 12 street fight, according to police. The NYPD was criticized by local politicians for making no arrests on the night of the fight, despite responding to the brawl in progress on East 82nd Street between Lexington and Park avenues.

In the days following the brawl, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said protesters started the fight after intercepting a group of Proud Boys on East 82nd Street and throwing a bottle at them. Lawyers for Proud Boys charged in relation to the fight have used a similar story in their defense, whereas prosecutors are now arguing that Proud Boys started the fight, the Times reported.

Dramatic video shows members of the Proud Boys cornering counter-protesters outside of the club and kicking them on the sidewalk as they lay on the ground. The group is also heard cursing and shouting gay slurs during the assault. As the group disperses, they can be heard saying "Proud Boys, let's go."

Police released video of the fight that comes from an angle that cannot show the two Proud Boys charge at protesters.

Photojournalist Sandi Bachom uploaded a video of the fight to Youtube which has more than 300,000 views. Bachom said the fight started after a counter protester attempted to steal a "Make America Great Again" hat off the head of a Proud Boys member. Three police officers approach the brawl on scooters, but appear hesitant to approach the fight or make arrests, according to Bachom's video.

Proud Boys leader Gavin McInness — a co-founder of Vice Media now known for spouting anti-Muslim and misogynistic beliefs on his show "Get Off My Lawn" — was invited by the Manhattan Republican Club to give a speech and perform a reenactment of the 1960 political assassination of Japanese socialist leader Inejiro Asanuma.

Vandals broke windows and spray-painted an Anarchist symbol on the Manhattan Republican Club's doors the night before the event. Ed Cox, the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee, called the vandalism an "an act of political violence done by cowards in the middle of the night" and blamed the attack on the rhetoric of state and national Democrats.

Read more: Patch's full explainer on the Proud Boys.