Conservative filmmaker pummeled at Trayvon rally

A conservative filmmaker and journalist says he was pummeled and “mowed to the ground” by an angry mob Sunday night in Oakland, Calif., during a protest of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the Florida death of Trayvon Martin.
 
“I have interviews and I have footage of [Trayvon protestors] chanting ‘no justice, no peace – f— you pigs in your sleep,’” the beating victim, Christian Hartsock, told the Daily Caller. “One of them was an elementary schooler chanting with his mom.”
 
Hartsock initially arrived at 9:30 p.m. Pacific time to film the rally, but shortly afterward, he was told by two men to leave the public area.
Upon his refusal, the men allegedly became belligerent.
 
“After retreating to a corner to catch B-roll, two young men approached me and interrogated me as to what I was doing there,” Hartsock said. “I advised them I was just there to see what was going on. They told me to get out. I asked why, which only afforded more threats. I declined their request to leave, they continued marching.”
 
He continued, “The two young men came back up to me and told me to leave. I told them ‘no’ and asked them what their issue was. Then other ralliers, noticing the two young men’s belligerence toward me, assumed I must have been up to something, so they began to approach me too and ask me what my problem was. I explained that I didn’t have a problem and didn’t know why I was being suddenly questioned. Within seconds there was an entire circle around me, threats being leveled from every direction.”
“One young man chanted ‘There’s gonna be some violence tonight!’” Hartsock told the Daily Caller. “He then came up to me and demanded I erase the footage from my phone – another request I declined.”
 
“As two other young men interrogated me, their friend behind them came up and a young man then slugged me in the face about three times – hard – and demanded that I leave,” Hartsock said. “Then I began getting clocked by others in my left temple and jaw by other assailants and was mowed to the ground by about half a dozen of them.”
Hartsock admitted he feared the worst.
 
“For a couple minutes I was pinned down to the ground – one gentleman on top of me slugging me across the face repeatedly as an indeterminable number of others kicked me in the side of the head, and tried to get my phone out of my hand. … The harder my grip tightened, the harder their punches to my face became,” he said.
 
The journalist says he “eventually fought them off before they could get my camera, wallet and keys.”
He filed a police report, but told the Daily Caller he was surprised at the apparent lack of interest from both the police and local news media.
“My video didn’t capture the assault but the mob was trying to jack my camera and my wallet and keys.”
 
Despite the racial overtones in the actual trial of Zimmerman, Hartsock says he doesn’t see a racial angle in his assault.
“Some of my assailants were white. Some black, some mixed race. There were civilized people there who were black and very kind to me at first.”
 
“I had no problems with anyone until two thugs came up to me and gave me sh–,” he said. “Others got involved simply because they saw two thugs giving me sh– and immediately [started] taking their side,” he said.
“It turned into a Domino effect,” says Hartsock. “It didn’t matter what I had to say. Everyone decided the thing now was to pile up on me.”

Baltimore police say they are investigating a witness account that a group of black youths beat a Hispanic man near Patterson Park Sunday while saying, "This is for Trayvon."
 
A witness posted the account on a community Facebook page, and police confirmed they are looking into whether the suspects' reaction to the verdict in the Florida trial of George Zimmerman played a part in the incident. A police report on the beating does not mention the alleged comments.
 
In a post that drew nearly 50 comments on Facebook, real estate agent Christina Dudley said she was walking to her car just before 9 p.m. when she saw several young black males and two black females chasing a 37-year-old Hispanic man west on North Linwood Avenue past East Fairmont Avenue.


"One of the boys had a handgun out and it was pointed at the back of him," Dudley said in an interview.
They caught up to the man at the corner of Fairmount and N. Streeper Street, and the male with the gun beat the victim with what appeared to be his gun while others kicked and stomped him, Dudley said.


"They were just yelling and calling him names as they ran after him, but once they were hitting him and after that they started yelling, "This is for Trayvon, [expletive]," said Dudley, who heard the chant repeated multiple times.

Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, has presided over an organization-wide outcry over Zimmerman's acquittal by a jury in Sanford, Florida
 
[b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"]The Orlando Sentinel[/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b] reported that Jealous told reporters after his keynote speech Monday that when he heard the verdict read, live on television, 'the first thing I did was walk over to my son's crib and lift him up and I listened to him breathe. And then I began to cry.'
SiriusXM radio host Joe Madison, known to his fans as 'The Black Eagle,' lashed out at Zimmerman and the court that allowed him to walk free.
Trayvon Martin's death, he said, was 'nothing more than a modern day lynching. George Zimmerman became the judge, jury and executioner.'
 
 
Attorney General Eric Holder will address the convention on Tuesday. The NAACP has collected nearly 300,000 signatures on a petition asking him to prosecute Zimmerman under federal civil rights law, an outcome that could become a reality despite the U.S. Constitution's protections against double jeopardy.
'We will update you as we work to pursue civil rights charges against Zimmerman through the DOJ,' the [b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"]NAACP tweeted [/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b]shortly after the verdict was read on Saturday night.
An FBI document published Monday on the website [b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"][b style="font-weight: bold"]The Smoking Gun[/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b][/b] shows that in the week following the 2012 shooting a Sanford, Fla. police detective 'described Zimmerman as overzealous and as having "a little hero complex," but not as a racist.'

 
Some protesters confronted police lines, like this one in Los Angeles, California, after Zimmerman was acquitted, despite civil rights leaders' calls for calm and peaceful protests


SiriusXM host Joe Madison said Martin's death was 'nothing more than a modern day lynching. George Zimmerman became the judge, jury and executioner'

The Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for a “Justice for Trayvon National Day of Action” on Saturday and say demonstrations are planned in more than 100 cities nationwide.


Saying there would not have been a trial in Florida without pressure from activists, Sharpton was confident that continued pressure would result in a federal civil rights case.

“When they’re telling you today, ‘I don’t know if they’re going to get a civil rights trial:’ We will. And we will get a civil trial,” Sharpton said on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show” on Monday morning. “What we’ve watched the last several weeks was not the system correcting itself, it was the people correcting the system. Now we’ve got to finish the job.”