About Me

My photo
Beverly Hills, California, United States
Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

Translate

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

White Nationalist Who Shoved a Black Protester Blames Trump

Teen Vogue 
By Suzannah Weiss
May 28, 2017

Matthew Heimbach, who was caught on film shoving a black protester at a Louisville, Kentucky rally for then-candidate Donald Trump rally, filed a lawsuit last month blaming Trump for inciting his actions. In the suit, Heimbach claims that he was acting “pursuant to the directives and requests of” Trump, who yelled “Get ’em outta here!” when the crowd shouted at protesters. The suit points out that Trump also told supporters at an Iowa rally to “knock the crap out of” protesters, and promised to pay their legal fees.

Kashiya Nwanguma, the woman Heimbach allegedly pushed, accused him of assault and battery in her own lawsuit, according to the New York Times, a filing that also argues that Trump is liable for the shoving. The president challenged this suit, but a judge ruled that he had in fact been “reckless” for egging on the crowd.

Both these lawsuits reflect a pattern: Trump’s election does appear to have encouraged discrimination and hate crimes. New York Police Department reported 42% more hate crimes between November 8 and February 19 than it did a year before, and 72% of them were antisemitic. This uptick was observed throughout the country: Nine big U.S. cities saw a 20% increase in hate crimes last year. In November, the Trump Hate Map had recorded more than 140 incidents “where Donald Trump, his supporters, or his staff harassed or attacked Latinos and immigrants.”

Mother Jones writer Wes Enzinna said he witnessed Heimbach’s evolution from someone who disavowed Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan to an outright white nationalist, which he takes as further evidence that Trump has fueled white supremacy. Heimbach’s lawsuit is “a revealing indication of the far right’s symbiotic relationship with Trump,” he wrote. “White nationalists, apparently, really do believe the president has been nudging them to commit violence, or at least promising to tolerate it if they do.”

For more information, go to:  www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

No comments: