How a woman infiltrated the Proud Boys
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Andy Campbell
@AndyBCampbell
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Meet an unlikely infiltrator of the Proud Boys:
Ashley molded herself into a fake, ditzy character who is "obsessed with Kim Guilfoyle," then got close to the street gang and sent video and other info back to her activist circle.
An excerpt from my book:
nbcnews.com
Opinion | How a woman infiltrated the Proud Boys
Women are opposing extremists online and in the field in a variety of roles including infiltration at great risk to their own safety, and against forces that want to kill them.
9:26 AM · Oct 17, 2022
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/proud-boys-oath-keepers-are-trial-women-are-helping-rcna52284
The House's Jan. 6 committee concluded its final public hearing this week, but the fallout of the Capitol riot is far from over. Indeed, leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremist groups face seditious conspiracy charges over what the Justice Department believes is an outsize role in the planning and execution of the insurrection. But while law enforcement is still attempting to unravel what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, there have long been brave and anonymous activists and researchers many of them women working to counter these extremist groups from the inside.
On Nov. 14, 2020, following a day of violent demonstrations among Trump supporters in Washington, D.C. for the Million MAGA March, familiar clashes broke out as Proud Boys attacked antifascist demonstrators outside Harrys Bar, their favorite local haunt. In an interview with me, one of the antifascists, a woman who supports medics in the field at demonstrations, recalled a harrowing scene in which a group of Proud Boys had her crew cornered and outnumbered, when one of them lunged at her:
The Proud Boys started spraying something into the crowd. I had my respirator on, so I wasnt affected, but one girl near me got it directly in the eyes. So Im looking at the medics, trying to get her some attention, but there wasnt much room.
Usually if youre trying to treat someone in the field, you try to take them to a safer spot, but at that point there was no safer spot. So we were in a corner. Our shield line had been doing a fairly OK job up to that point of trying to keep the Proud Boys separated from the rest of the group, but they got overwhelmed. The shield line ended up breaking. And thats when they started charging into the crowd.
I looked at the medics and I was like, "We have to move this person, we have no choice, we have to go." As we started trying to move, thats when a Proud Boy who had to have more than 100 pounds and a foot of height on me grabbed me and held me. He punched my arm, or at least thats what I thought, that he was punching me. And 15 minutes later, after my adrenaline settled a bit, I realized hed actually stabbed me.
She broke away and ran before he could land more blows. She wrapped the wound, but didnt immediately go to the hospital, until another medic, whom she described as a combat veteran, took a look.
*snip*