An unidentified male choked a female protesting a New York Gov. Kathy Hochul rally on Saturday in Manhattan.
Viral News New York first posted a video on Twitter with over 300,000 views, showing at least two people attacking Angelica Torres, a supporter of Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin.
The New York Post reports the altercation near the Stonewall Inn, where Hochul appeared with Bravo host Andy Cohen in an apparent effort to garner more votes from the LGBTQ community ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections.
“I was here holding my sign, and … peaceful protest, against you know, Gov. Hochul, and a woman — a very large heavyset woman, I’m assuming, you know, might have been a man — came and took my sign,” Torres told Viral News NY in a video tweet.
Although it’s unclear what led to the altercation, Torres said a man grabbed her by the neck and choked her as she attempted to retrieve her sign while two others prevented her from regaining her property.
“Never wanted to get physical with anyone, I was just there peacefully — just holding my sign — and you know, they didn’t want to hear what I had to say,” she added.
At the Rally for governor Hochul a counter protesters was choked during the protest. I spoke with the woman who was attacked. Here’s what she had to say pic.twitter.com/c60ad9LoiQ
— Viral News NY (@ViralNewsNYC) November 5, 2022
Torres also spoke with FOX News Sunday, saying it upset her that someone attacked her for having a different opinion.
“I was very shocked and upset that I couldn’t express my opinions openly without violence,” she said. “Crime and violence is a big issue in our city.”
Torres received medical treatment and reported the incident to the local authorities.
Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, a Democrat representing Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, was also seen in the video getting pushed by Torres.
Hudson did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The third-world style of political violence comes as no surprise in a melting pot like New York City. The latest crime figures from the New York Police Department.
According to The Daily Mail, NYPD data shows violence has increased compared to statistics from last year, with an 11% increase in rape cases, felony assaults are up by nearly 14 percent, and robberies have jumped up more than 32 percent compared to last year.
The data reports 102,914 reports of serious offenses have occurred since the beginning of the year, compared with 78,892 in the same period of 2021.
A poll by the Trafalgar Group showed that Zeldin holds a lead of just under one point against Hochul, 48.4%-47.6%, with 4% of voters undecided.
Trafalgar Group chief pollster Robert Cahaly also reported that Zeldin was pulling support from an interesting group of Democratic voters in the race.
“I’ve been saying that I had a theory, based on our last two #NYGov #polls, that what’s left of the #Cuomo machine could back @leezeldin,” Cahaly tweeted.
Included in his tweet were two screenshots of hypothetical polls that showed disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo would have led Zeldin by 10 points, 55%-45%; a sizeable majority of voters said that Cuomo did a better job as governor than Hochul, 59.4% to 40.6%.
John Rigolizzo contributed to this report.
