Three Seniors Attacked Shortly After Latest Denver Protest

Three people in their seventies say they were attacked by protesters leaving the State Capitol after the Rage Against the Regime rally on Saturday, August 2, with two women having to visit the hospital.

"These people just turned on me on a dime," says Andrew Moura, a retired photojournalist who was attacked by demonstrators while taking photos of them. "People started to swarm around me like someone set the word on me." 

Crowd Gangs Up on Photographer

The Rage Against the Regime was supposed to wrap up at 2 p.m., but, like with other protests, some people stayed around the Capitol into the evening. Moura says his incident took place at the State Capitol around 5:30 p.m. Two other women were harassed and then attacked near Union Station between 6:45 and 7:50 p.m.

Moura says he went to the protest to take photos, because he still enjoys photography as a hobby. He showed up late to the protests, at around 5 p.m., but was able to capture photos of law enforcement arriving in armored trucks and tactical gear to move protesters out of the street. 

After most protesters and police left, he continued snapping photos of a small group that lingered on Lincoln Street in front of the Capitol. He was quietly taking photos when about fifteen protesters suddenly turned on him, Moura says, noting that they were all dressed head-to-toe in black, wearing masks and carrying signs. 

"There wasn't really a lot going on, and then one guy put his hand on my lens and people started swarming around me," Moura says. "I wasn't talking to anybody at all. I don't know anybody at all. I was just taking pictures, and this happened."

According to Moura, the group began pushing him with their bodies up the hill on the State Capitol's west lawn and shouting at him. He had trouble making out what they were saying, but "they were trying to blame me," he says. 

"They were trying to create an argument, I guess, to beat me up," Moura says. "I tried to stay quiet, and I kept shooting. They're not blaming Trump. They should have been blaming Trump. ...I didn't know what was going on. I was totally confused." 

As Moura tried to exit the scrum of people around him, he says one woman slapped him a couple times, and he responded by taking a picture of her. She then punched him, he says, and that's when Colorado State Patrol, which polices the Capitol grounds, stepped in and pulled him away.   

State Patrol confirmed that Moura "was struck and then separated from protesters" at the Capitol on Saturday, noting that he turned down medical care and declined to press charges. Moura, having spent his career in journalism, says that he declined to press charges because he preferred to go to the media to warn people about the violence and call out the people who attacked him.

"I've been in the Rodney King riots in L.A. and all kinds of stuff, but that has never happened to me before, where the people I'm shooting among turn on me like that," Moura says. "I'm disgusted with that group."

Separate Attack Near Union Station

About an hour after Moura's incident, Denver resident Vikki Gray says a protester came up to her while she was leaving Venice restaurant at 1700 Wynkoop with three friends.

"We got three steps out the door before this woman came walking down 17th, toward Union Station, and she immediately says something to the effect of, "You look like a Donald Trump supporter,'" Gray recalls. "From there it just went downhill."

According to Gray, who didn't know at the time that a protest had taken place hours ago just over a mile away, the woman was the only person demonstrating on the street, "but there were a lot of people around" to witness the attack.

Gray and her friends, both of whom declined to be named, were on their way to a light rail platform near Union Station to go home as the woman followed and harassed them by hurling taunts and screaming at them "to the point it was painful to my ears because she was so close," she says.

"She got up next to me, like almost touching me, and started following me lockstep down the street, across traffic, screaming at the top of her lungs that I was 'a pedophile' and 'a pedophile lover,' a whole bunch of crazy left-wing stuff, using filthy language," Gray describes. "Everybody's looking at me and her screaming."
Gray says she and her friends told the woman to "leave us alone" and "get away," but it didn't help. One of Gray's friends began recording the incident, and a couple of younger men tried to intervene and tell the woman to leave, "but she went around them and got right back in front of us," Gray says.

"She followed us all the way until we got to our train platform, and then just as the train came in, she punched me in the face and knocked me backwards," Gray says. "I cracked my head on the pavement."

Gray started bleeding after hitting the ground. The woman then kicked one of Gray's friends once in the stomach and twice in the hips, Gray says. After other people on the RTD platform started yelling at the attacker, she reportedly fled down WeWatta Street,

Officers from the RTD Transit Police Department showed up as her attacker fled, according to Gray, who says the Denver Police Department never showed despite calls to 911 from Gray, her friends and bystanders. An RTD medic arrived and told Gray she had to go to the hospital because she takes blood thinners.

Gray describes her attacker as a "large" woman at around 5'10, dressed in black and carrying a well-made sign. The woman seemed to be acting alone, but plenty of bystanders saw what unfolded, Gray says.

RTD confirms the incident, saying in a statement that at "7:50 p.m., two of our RTDPD officers were conducting a routine patrol around Denver Union Station when they were dispatched to investigate an assault. They were flagged down by a group who advised two females in their group were assaulted by a different female unknown to them."

Gray's friend recorded the attacker and shared screenshots with RTD police. According to Gray, RTD could have chased down her attacker when they first arrived, "but instead they took statements."

According to RTD's statement, "RTDPD checked the area but were not able to locate the female suspect." RTD also notes that the incident didn't happen on RTD property, so it handed the case over to the Denver Police Department, which says it doesn't have a record of an incident like this taking place near Union Station at the time. 

Gray says she's fine, but her friend, who was kicked by the attacker, had to visit the emergency room three days after the attack because of injuries to her hip, which had recently broken and was still recovering.

Denver Protests Are Usually Non-Violent, but Not Always

In early February, a group of women heading towards a protest at the State Capitol was harassed by two males in a pickup truck who threw a glass bottle and shouted at them. The two attackers were later arrested, and one was a minor. The adult suspect, David Halverson, pleaded not guilty on August 7 and is scheduled to have a trial in December.

Protesters and law enforcement also clashed at the ICE Out! protest on June 10 and then again at the No Kings protest on June 14; both rallies saw thousands attend at the State Capitol before turning into marches.
A person at a protest kicked conservative radio talk show host Jeff Hunt in the back during the ICE Out! protest, with Hunt noting he was likely hit because he was doing "little gotcha" videos. Stories of civilians attacking other civilians haven't been common at this year's protests, however.

Neither Moura or Gray describes themselves as leaning strongly in any political direction, with both saying they've had various left-leaning political opinions over the decades. However, Gray says that she lost all her sympathy for liberal causes after the incident.

"I used to be pretty liberal, and now I don't want anything to do with any of them," Gray says. "I don't give a rat's ass about any of their causes. If this is what they want to do in America, I don't want anything to do with them. I support nothing they're advocating for."

Moura, who's from Long Island and moved to Colorado ten months ago, says that the state has changed for the worse since he was stationed at the Lowry Air Force Base in 1975.

"Colorado isn't what it used to be, at all," Moura says. "It's like a free-for-all all. It's very intriguing to me, how these Colorado people think, especially these young groups."