Proud Boys Leader Gavin McInnes Arranging Surrender Of 8 Members To Police
One week to the date of their headline-grabbing brawl with anti-fascist protesters in Manhattan, at least eight members of the right-wing fraternal organization the Proud Boys are expected to turn themselves over to the New York Police Department on Friday night, October, 19.
This according to co-founder of Vice Media, and leader of the group, Gavin McInnes, who has confirmed with the New York Times that he is working on arranging the surrender.
“They are going to be in the Tombs by tonight,” the New York City-based publication quotes McInnes, 48, as stating hours prior to the members in question being taken into custody.
McInnes’ compliance comes just days after NYPD commanders succumbed to pressure from the public to hold Proud Boys involved in the E. 83rd Street melee to account for their suspected role in the violence. In hand with three people from the opposing group being detained, Newsweek would report much being made of McInnes following the incident up by claiming to have a lot of support within the city’s police force. Before long, the NYPD responded to the demands by announcing that they were looking for nine Proud Boys who are believed to have been involved.
One of the nine men, 38-year-old Geoff Young, has already been arraigned after being taken in and booked on charges of rioting and attempted assault on Thursday night. By midday Friday a second suspect named Jay, or “Johnny” Kinsman, was captured. Kinsman’s charges were still pending at press time.
10/ #GavinMcInnes, #ProudBoy leader, is now assisting in the arrest of the 8 members involved in the violent #Manhattan brawl.@alanfeuer via @nythttps://t.co/bPcDUNJVoh
— Samantha Kutner ?? (@ashkenaz89) October 19, 2018
The Proud Boys have been under heavy scrutiny since video went viral to show a dozen or so of the group’s members stalking and then attacking a couple of black-clad Antifa demonstrators who had been staking out their presence at the Metropolitan Republican Club. Defenders of McInnes’ followers argue that they were responding to acts of vandalism and provocations coming from their counterparts, while critics have questioned why the club invited a fringe group with the Proud Boys’ reputation for stirring confrontation in the first place.
As the Inquisitr previously reported, some of the condemnation they’ve faced has come from the highest ranks of state leadership, with Governor Andrew Cuomo himself blasting the Proud Boys and the MRC. The governor would even go so far as to take aim at President Trump, whose inflammatory rhetoric Cuomo blamed as ultimately responsible for creating the climate of division that has seen such politically charged clashes take place on streets across the United States over the past couple of years.
