This post provides an overview of the Antifa Pacific Beach riot and what happened in the trial of the two Antifa who went to trial in April, 2024, Jeremy White and Brian Lightfoot. There were eleven Antifa originally charged in the conspiracy to riot. Nine of them pled guilty before the trial began. There is also a 12th Antifa, Jonah Bigel, who participated in the riot and attempted to burn down a police storefront a couple of weeks after the riot. He was arrested and prosecuted separately.
Verdict: The verdict was read on 5/3/24. The two defendants who went to trial. Both were found to be guilty of conspiracy. Jeremy White was found not guilty of his one count of assault. Brian Lightfoot was found guilty on 6 counts of assault, not guilty on one count and the jury was hung on 9 counts. Nine other Antifa had already pled guilty.
Antifa has an anarcho-communist ideology that justifies violence against fascists, Nazis and racists. When there is a shortage of fascists, Nazis and white supremacists to attack they tend to brand everyone who opposes them as that. They are a revolutionary movement and believe that the American system is a fascist and racist system, which should be destroyed. It is not clear that any person they attacked during this riot could be legitimately labeled a fascist, Nazi, or white supremacist. In any case, it is still a crime to attack someone for what you perceive (or imagine) their beliefs to be.
NOTE: This post is a work in progress. I will be fleshing it out with more video and text for a couple of weeks to give you a concise view of how it went down.
Patriots and high school boys attacked
Four patriots and four high-school boys arrived at that event early to provide a place where those arriving could congregate. An estimated 40-50 persons in Black Bloc showed up. About 50 more persons were with Antifa mostly from the ideologically allied Black Lives Matter movement. The Antifa were armed with bear-spray, pepper-spray, tasers, full cans of Twisted Tea used as projectiles, knives, batons, clubs, and one baseball bat, carried by Jonah Bigel. Lightfoot sprayed all eight of them first with bear spray and a couple of other Antifa joined the spraying. Video of this incident is shown at the beginning of this news video by the “Daily Caller” website.
The four patriots were the main target, but the 17-year-old school boys were also sprayed and one was beaten down by a group of Antifa. Light testified that he analyzed the patriots and he knew they were about to become violent because the one in the blue checkered shirt had his hands in his pockets.
Prosecutor relates White’s and Lightfoot’s comments on the initial attack that started the riot.
As the four patriots retreated they continued to beat and kick them and throw projectiles at them. A helpless, unarmed woman was beaten was by several of them. Jesse Cannon threw a wooden folding chair that hit her in the back. She lunged at Lightfoot who had bear-sprayed her. Lightfoot pushed her to the ground while several Antifa continued to beat and kick her.
Lightfoot claimed self-defense in this incident, because she lunges at him out of desperation. The prosecutor pointed out that once you attack someone, you can not claim self-defense any longer if they try to fight back. The unarmed woman’s attempt to fight back was not even a a real threat to Lightfoot.
Some of them chased one of the high school boys, who had already been sprayed with bear-spray for some distance along the boardwalk. The 17-year old was very thin, probably weighed less that 150 pounds. Several of them started beating the boy mercilessly and spraying him. It seems it was Samuel Ogden who brought a heavy walking stick about 5-feet long similar to the photo to be used as a club. They also beat boy with the walking stick. They showed a photo in court of the boy’s back in court with about 6 huge welts on his back from the club. I have not seen that image on the Internet, probably because he’s a minor. However, the photographer, John Cocozza, was hit later with the same club and the boy’s wounds look the same as Cocozzas in the photo below, only the boy had about half a dozen on his back.
Man and dog bear-sprayed
One of the Antifa knocked a child off a bicycle. An man, walking his dog on the boardwalk, approached Jeremy White to complain about it. White bear-sprayed the man and his dog. The dog was lunging at White, but the man was tightening his grip on the dog and still had a strong grip on him when they were both sprayed.
To View a video of the event, go to YouTube at this link”
Excerpted from Prosecutor Harvey’s Closing Statement. All court audio is credited to Ken Stone of Times of San Diego.
Phone stolen and smashed
Two Republican woman tried to cross the area occupied by Antifa / BLM to go to the patriot area as the anarcho-communists chant a threat of violence FUCK AROUND, FIND OUT!. They stole the phone from one of the women and took turns stomping on it. One Antifa member pounded it with a flagstaff. The phone was in live mode, so they recording themselves committing the crime. Then, they gave the destroyed phone back to its owner as evidence.
First photographer attacked
Here, John Cocozza describes what happened to him. He is a professional photographer, who was just there that day to take photographs. He is trained in the martial arts and has work as a bouncer in bars. He had no fear of Antifa and talked back to them. For probably that reason he was tagged as the “enemy”.
Second photographer attacked
A second photographer on a bike was attacked, referred to as RL in the court documents. RL carried a knife in a scabbard, which is legal.
RL was beaten down by several people. His bicycle and hat was stolen and thrown into a garbage dumpster.
Jeremy White is accused of pointing him out for attack for other. He is also accused of following him around the corner and bear-spraying him and tasing him.
John Cocozza helped free RL from the attackers. Brian Lightfoot grabbed from Samuel Ogden the same walking stick that the high-schools boy was beaten with and hit Cocozza on the back with it.
Man beaten while trying to rescue daughter
An older man, who according to defendant Lightfoot was attacking a younger woman. The man was slugged by Lightfoot the father in the head and knocked him to the ground by one of the Lightfoot, then three other Antifa jumped in and the four of them beat the man together. The DDA played the 911 call and the man told police he was her father trying to get her out of the danger of the Antifa riot. She was possibly a supporter of Antifa / BLM and did not want to leave. So, they were probably having an altercation with him trying to her to pull her out of the riot. Lightfoot was wiping away tears after they played that 911 call. However, when the prosecutor asked whether he regretted attacking that father trying to save he daughter, he said, “no”.
Man punched and bear-sprayed
A older man who had been drinking talked back to several Antifa members. He was bear-sprayed by Lightfoot without any justification. Have not seen video of that on the Internet, but the prosecutors showed it in court.
Unidentified men beaten down
There were, I believe, one or two unidentified men where were beaten down and bear-sprayed by a number of Antifa members.
This is one such attack on an unknow man by a group of Antifa, presumably for no good justification. I assume that, because the were attacking other people with no justification.
Notice a call goes out for a medic from multiple Antifa members. That the medic is not for the person that the mob beat viscously, but for one of the mob who carried out the beating. Jeremy White is standing there watching the beating, but there is no sign that he offer to help by stopping the beating or aiding the victim.
Antifa/BLM rioters attack police
The riot was declared an unlawful assembly by police, but only on the Antifa/BLM side. The Antifa/BLM mob refused to leave, which is itself a crime. Some on the Antifa/BLM side attacked the police line. Bottles, rocks and eggs were thrown at police. The police drove the mob back by firing volleys of pepper balls on the ground to create a cloud of irritant.
See an aerial view if this fighting at 10:49 this link.
The twelfth Antifa conspirator
[pdf-embedder url=”https://patriot-fire.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Jonah-Bigel-Charges.pdf” title=”Jonah Bigel Charges”]
Download – Jonah Bigel charges (PDF file)
More info on Jeremy White
White testified at the trial that he had participated in a number of national protests. He received a congressional award from Bernie Sanders.
Listen here to the interview that White gave for the Antifa-friendly website, “It’s going down.” White has plenty of legal and ideological reasons to spin things. No one should assume he is being truthful.
Antifa ideology justifies violence
This is an except from the Antifa Handbook by Bray. Antifa supports violence upon those they deem to be fascist or white supremacist. They often define their opposition as “fascist”, whether they really are or not. It states that Antifa does not wait for violence from the other side to shut the event down. That is exactly what Antifa did at this Pacific Beach event. They didn’t wait for violence, but tried to shut down a free speech rally with rampant violence from their side without any justification.
Related Articles
San Diego jury convicts two So Cal Antifa members – The Post Millennial
Jurors affirm riot charges for two defendants in 2021 PB violence – San Diego Reader
Antifa defendants expose selves gloating over Reader cover – San Diego Reader
More to be added.
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Frederick Jefferson was found dead in jail during the night of August 31, 2018 in San Diego. He had just been sentenced to seven years in prison the previous day (August 31), for the beating and serious injury of a policemen at an event called “Patriot Picnic II”, last February 3rd.
