“Proud Boys” Protesters Take Plea Deal

As the the nation’s attention was riveted to the fallout of a fatal confrontation between white supremacists and counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, two anti-racist counterdemonstrators accepted a plea deal for their roles in an earlier confrontation that went awry in New Haven.

The two activists, David M. Simone, 49, of North Bergen, N.J., and Roseanna Ryburn, 37, of Brooklyn, N.Y., both appeared before Superior Court Judge Karen Nash Sequino last week on charges of interfering with police officers during a protest against a group who call themselves the Proud Boys. Both accepted a plea deal of six months in a probationary program.

On July 8, six members of the Proud Boys met on the New Haven Green to hear a scheduled speaker. The lecturer never arrived. Nearly 150 counter-demonstrators showed up in opposition, almost all of them from New Haven and determined to remain non-violent. But a few of them from out of town also showed up, wearing the face masks and carrying the tools of the direct-action oriented ​“antifa” movement.

In the clash, those few out-of-towners attacked the Proud Boys. Camera footage from the event shows Ryburn, with a pink bandana and big sunglasses obscuring her face, shoving a Proud Boy in the back, smacking his arm with a black vuvuzela and kicking him in the behind at least twice. According to the New Haven Police Department, Ryburn also allegedly threw a paint-filled balloon toward an cop, then walked away. (The balloon didn’t hit anyone; the paint splattered on an officer.) Police also said that Simone allegedly blared his megaphone’s siren in a cop’s face and carried illegal fireworks in his backpack.

In the courtroom this past Monday morning, joined by nearly a dozen supporters who watched in silence, Simone and Ryburn’s attorney disputed the police’s account of their actions and the court’s rationale for punishing them.

“I just want to make sure it’s clear my client detests the very concept that Nazis are here,” said the attorney, Ken Krayeske.

Judge Sequino answered that it is the court’s job to make sure that violence isn’t met with violence. That way, ​“hate is reduced all around,” she said as she handed down her order.

The defendants decided to cut a deal and take ​“accelerated rehabilitation,” a diversion program available to some non-violent, first-time offenders. The defendants acknowledged their law-breaking, and Sequino agreed to dismiss their cases if each didn’t commit another offense for six months. To qualify for a fee waiver, Ryburn also has to complete 10 hours of community service.

Outside the courtroom, Krayeske and Simone criticized the justice system for overlooking the danger that white supremacy poses to American civil society. (Ryburn declined an interview.)

Krayeske, a one-time administrator for New Haven’s clean-elections program, said it was foolish not to hear what the alt-right was really calling for in their plans for a white ethno-state. ​“We need people to protest public displays of white supremacy. We know what their ends are, and we cannot empower them. It’s a complete and total failure to recognize the threat,” he said. ​“There must be no tolerance for intolerance that ends in death chambers.”

Simone said that he had ​“no regrets” about his actions. If anything, he added, he felt ​“vindicated” by watching the carnage in Charlottesville that left one woman dead and dozens injured when a 20-year-old from Ohio plowed his car into anti-fascist protestors. ​“If it wasn’t for us, it could have been repeated here,” he said.

“They’re here, they’re in our country. The state is not protecting us, and the government is not protecting us,” Simone added. ​“The police are not going to do anything; they would have wanted to protect [the white supremacists].

“Think of it this way: People always ask, ​‘What would you have done during Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany?’ The answer is exactly what you are doing now. If you’re not happy with that, then you need to reevaluate,” Simone continued. ​“My grandfather didn’t see his friends die face-down in the muck [in World War II] to have these guys go unopposed. They have to literally be chased down our streets.”

Asked whether violence against might not further radicalize far-right extremists and make them out as martyrs to potential recruits, Simone said he believed that peaceful protest is also a key strategy for resistance, but that occasional violence shouldn’t be ruled out.

“We don’t want [white supremacists] to be able to show their face in public. They were afraid for a long time, but that’s changed now that Trump’s in the White House and the government is supporting them,” Simone argued. ​“I think that a punch is worth it for a Nazi to be scared.”

In mid-February next year, Simone and Ryburn are both scheduled to return to the Elm Street courthouse to have their cases closed.

Two other local activists also ended up in handcuffs at the July 8 protest: Barbara Fair and her nephew DraMese Fair. At her July 19 court appearance, Fair refused a plea deal and told the Independent she plans to fight the charges. She and her nephew are both due in court again on Sept. 26.