This past Saturday out in Manhattan, a still unidentified man attacked and choked a female protester standing outside of a rally for New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
The first to highlight the video from Twitter of the incident was Viral News New York which received over 300,000 views in short order. The video highlights a pair of people aggressively attacking a supporter of Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin, Angelica Torres.
It was reported by The New York Post that the incident took place quite close to the Stonewall Inn, where Hochul showed up alongside Andy Cohen, a host for Bravo, in what seemed to be a last-ditch effort to gather a few more voters by targeting the LGBTQ community just days before the 2022 Midterm Elections started.
“I was here holding my sign, and … peaceful protest, against you know, Gov. Hochul, and a woman — a very large heavyset woman, I’m assuming, you know, might have been a man — came and took my sign,” explained Torres in an interview with Viral News NY posted in another social media post.
Despite it not being entirely clear what sparked the insane incident, Torres stated that one man grabbed her by the neck to choke her as she attempted to gather up her sign while another two people physically prevented her from gathering up her property.
“Never wanted to get physical with anyone, I was just there peacefully — just holding my sign — and you know, they didn’t want to hear what I had to say,” she tacked on.
WATCH:
At the Rally for governor Hochul a counter protesters was choked during the protest. I spoke with the woman who was attacked. Here's what she had to say pic.twitter.com/c60ad9LoiQ
— Viral News NY (@ViralNewsNYC) November 5, 2022
Torres was also able to speak with Fox News Sunday, claiming that it was quite upsetting that someone attacked her solely for having an alternative opinion to her.
“I was very shocked and upset that I couldn’t express my opinions openly without violence,” she stated. “Crime and violence is a big issue in our city.”
Torres was able to get medical treatment for the incident and filed a report with the local police officials.
One Democrat known to be representing Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, was also spotted in the video getting pushed by Torres.
Hudson has not made any attempts to respond to the Post and their requests for comments on the issue.
As reported by The Daily Mail, NYPD data highlights that violence rates have spiked when looking at data from the previous year, with an almost 11% jump in rape cases, a 32 percent spike in overall robbery cases, and an almost 14% jump in felony assaults when looking at last year.
