(Thousand Oaks) No arrests have yet been made in the death of a Jewish man who fell during an altercation between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters near Los Angeles, California, the sheriff said Tuesday local.
The investigation is open “for homicide”, explained Jim Fryhoff, sheriff of Ventura County, without excluding a possible anti-Semitic motive and specifying that he had briefly arrested then released a pro-Palestinian demonstrator.
But “the suspect was not arrested. No arrests have been made in connection with this incident,” he added.
The 69-year-old Jewish man, Paul Kessler, died of a head injury on Monday, after taking part in a pro-Israel demonstration on Sunday, at an intersection where a pro-Palestinian rally was also taking place, in the city of Thousand Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles.
A confrontation took place between the two groups, which numbered between “75 and 100 people” between them, according to the sheriff.
During this altercation, Mr. Kessler fell backwards and hit his head on the ground, according to the first elements of the investigation. When police arrived, “he was bleeding from his head and mouth.”
“What happened before Mr. Kessler fell backwards is unclear at this time,” the sheriff insisted. According to him, several witnesses at the scene provided “conflicting statements on the nature of the altercation and the identity of the attacker.”
Call for calm
Just after the demonstration, a pro-Palestinian suspect was questioned by officers. “Cooperative”, this 50-year-old man admitted to having been involved in the altercation and himself called emergency services for Mr. Kessler, according to the sheriff.
After the death on Monday, the suspect was briefly arrested and a search took place at his home. He was later released.
According to the first results of the autopsy, Mr. Kessler’s death was due to the injury caused by the impact of his head against the ground. The sixty-year-old also had a non-lethal wound on the left side of his face.
“We are waiting to see evidence of what happened and this interaction, to determine whether a blow to the face caused the fall, or whether Mr. Kessler fell without that being the trigger.” , detailed the sheriff.
“We urge you to remain calm, peaceful and patient,” he added, adding that he had reinforced patrols around mosques and synagogues.
Conviction
The death of Mr. Kessler is “a hard blow to our region at a time when tensions continue to rise around the world,” responded Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday.
“As details emerge and are confirmed, we strongly condemn the violence and anti-Semitism,” she added.
This incident comes a month after the attack carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil, which left more than 1,400 dead, mainly civilians, according to the Israeli authorities. The Palestinian Islamist movement has also taken more than 240 hostages to Gaza.
Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombed the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas, more than 10,328 people died in Israeli bombings, the majority civilians including more than 4,200 children.
In this context, the United States, which has the largest number of Jewish people in the world after Israel, fears the importation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict onto their territory.
In early October, a six-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed near Chicago by a 71-year-old man, a crime directly linked to the war between Israel and Hamas according to police.