Mykel Mosley, an African-American teen, walked out of a mall in Vancouver, Washington, on May 11, 2018, and saw a pickup truck flying a Donald Trump flag. He reacted uncivilly and shouted an obscenity about Mr. Trump. Two men got out of the truck, chased Mosley, and knocked him to the ground. The men were members of the Proud Boys, a new right-wing group that says its members are “Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” Guess who got detained by mall security, got arrested, got charged with felonies, and spent a week in a juvenile lockup. Yes, Mykel Mosley. The two men who assaulted him were not detained, much less arrested. This assault and others by members of the Proud Boys are described in a lengthy Seattle Times article published today.
The good news is that the Clark County prosecutor dropped the charges against Mykel Mosley “in the best interests of justice.” This came after the Western State Center wrote a letter to the prosecutor that said “After the alleged assault by the Proud Boys, security and law enforcement engaged on the side of these far-right actors rather than the youth of color they had targeted.” The Clark County prosecutor told the Seattle Times that the statements of the security guards to the police “were not consistent with what he saw in the video clips of the event,” and that the case had been referred to the Vancouver City Attorney for a review of possible charges against the attackers of Mykel Mosley. Yes, there was video, shot by a friend of Mosley. Naturally, the video was edited and reposted on a right-wing YouTube channel, where it’s gotten 200,000 views. The video confirms that Mykel Mosley was assaulted. That was the point — it’s a celebration video, so far as the Proud Boys are concerned.