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Republican Donnie Palmer, who is running to unseat Rep. Ayanna Pressley — a member of the so-called "Squad" — and several supporters posted up outside of a campaign rally in Somerville on Saturday, Sept. 24, the Boston Herald reported.
Videos show a handful of protesters gathered outside the Somerville Theatre event that featured Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and several others. Protestors confronted the women as they entered the back of the building.
Demonstrators called them racists, hypocrites for arriving in an SUV while stumping for climate change policies, and "race hustlers" for discussing racial disparity in the United States.
It's unclear what sparked the brawl, but a video shows four men approaching one of the protestors and accusing him of grabbing a woman. Though, they didn't say when this happened.
The demonstrator claims the men were security for the congresswomen or another local politician there to silence dissent. Palmer also later claimed this was a politically motivated attack though he provided no clear evidence.
Representatives for the congresswomen denied this to the Herald.
“The altercation occurred outside the theater and down the block and didn’t involve event security or anyone associated with the event itself,” Harry Shipps, a spokesperson with Pressley, said in a statement to the newspaper.
The next video shows the men and protestors wailing on one another on the sidewalk. Palmer, who says in his bio that he is an Army veteran and pro boxer, also jumped into the fray.
Palmer shared a photo that he says shows a bite mark one of the men left on his shoulder.
Somerville police arrested Foster Starkes of Cambridge and Andwain Coleman of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and charged them with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, NBC Boston said.
Responders took a man that Palmer identified as Shawn Nelson of Dorchester to the hospital for treatment. Nelson showed off several cuts and scrapes on his face and head in photos on a Facebook post.
Nelson has a history of rabble-rousing outside of Democrat events. Police arrested him in June when he protested Mayor Michelle Wu's "coffee hour" in Dorchester, reports said.
He and several other people were angry over her COVID-19 policies. Boston police officers had to hold him back at a demonstration against Boston City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune later that month, Universal Hub reported.
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