Prosecutor claiming antifa ‘direct action’ is conspiracy lists far-right brawlers as ‘victims'

It’s a serious problem when any component of our law enforcement apparatus blatantly sides with right-wing extremists—particularly the violent street brawlers who have been plaguing urban centers—and not only defends their actions but overlooks their crimes, perhaps even taking up their cause by targeting their enemies for arrest and prosecution. It’s a big problem when police do it, as we discovered on Jan. 6. And it’s even a bigger problem when prosecutors do it.

Take, for instance, the San Diego County prosecutor who has slapped a number of local antifascists with felony conspiracy charges arising from violence that arose in January 2021 involving a pro-Trump crowd featuring Proud Boys and their cohorts. An investigation by USA Today’s Will Carless reveals that not only has the prosecutor overlooked fulsome evidence of right-wing violence that day, a number of the people it has listed as “victims” in the violence are people with deep connections to white supremacists and far-right street brawlers.