Armed Antifa Try to Shootdown Straight Pride

ANTIFA members were among the radical leftists that descended upon a “straight pride” event in Modesto, California, in an attempt to shut it down — but cops in riot gear also showed up and reportedly fired pepper-spray bullets and beanbags at the enraged counter-protesters who were forced to retreat from their “unlawful assembly.”

Prior to the event, the local “Antifa Community” got itself into a lather, gleefully tweeting about how to “shut down straight pride!” 

Apparently, it worked because the “straight pride” marchers were seriously outnumbered, according to Modesto police. The authorities estimated the straight pride crowd at “30-ish” people and their opponents at “125 to 150.”

According to local paper “The Modesto Bee,” this was the fourth consecutive year that straight pride demonstrators gathered in front of the Planned Parenthood building on McHenry Avenue, adding that, like last year, violence broke out.

In fact, the paper said things got physical nearly two hours before the event, which was scheduled for noon on the day the left-wing militants attacked.

The Bee reported that a scuffle broke out when an alleged Proud Boy tried pushing past police, citing a straight pride supporter named Richard who didn’t identify as a Proud Boy. Counter-protesters threw water bottles in retaliation, the Bee said, adding that a blast and fireworks then went off.

Modesto Police Department spokeswoman Sharon Bear told the paper a smoke bomb caused a bush to catch fire, leading cops to declare the event an unlawful gathering.

More than 25 officers in tactical gear soon arrived, the Bee said. Police fired pepper spray and riot bullets at counter-protesters, reportedly injuring at least two people, the paper said, adding that cops also used beanbag guns, which looked like orange shotguns.

Three people were arrested for “failure to disperse,” Bear told the Bee, adding that two were aligned with straight pride and one was a counter-protester.

None of the arrestees are local to Stanislaus County, the paper added.

“They came at us with batons, they jabbed us, they hit the crap out of out us,” according to one counter-protester who got nailed by a pepper-spray bullet, declining to give his name to the Bee and continuing to wheeze even after volunteers flushed his eyes with water.

The presence of Modesto police and Stanislaus County sheriff’s personnel grew, the paper said, adding that officers formed a line and pushed counter-protesters back, while the police force’s armadillo — a black SWAT-style truck equipped with cameras — pulled up.

A flyer for the straight pride event called it “a celebration of heterosexuality, masculinity, femininity, babies born and unborn, Western civilization, Christianity, and our wonderful country.”