Paul Kessler was a 69-year-old Jewish man who died Sunday after a pro-Hamas agitator attacked him during a protest in Thousand Oaks. An eyewitness said that it seemed that Kessler had been targeted by the pro-Hamas group that protested on the same corner the Sunday before, possibly because the police were called that day after one of their pro-Hamas agitators displayed a gun.
The man in the above photo allegedly lifted his shirt during the protest on October 29, to reveal a pistol in his belt. This was at the same intersection (Thousand Oaks Boulevard & Westlake Boulevard just north of 101 Freeway). The man fled before the police arrived.
This Instagram video from October 30 shows the mood of the event that carried over into the day Kessler died.
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Eyewitnesses report that during the protest on November 5, this man led a gentleman to the Shell station corner (across from where the majority of the pro-Hamas group was located) to Mr. Kessler, as if to point Kessler to the older gentleman.
The pro-Hamas group was located at the southwest corner of the intersection, directly in front of Paul Martin’s American Grill.
The attack occurred within five minutes after the agitators arrived at the corner where Kessler stood. The eyewitness does not have video footage of the attack but says the gray-haired bearded man wearing khaki trousers is the one who attacked Kessler with the bullhorn.
Another witness claims that Kessler had been “decked”, but a Hamas supporter says that Kessler had “slipped.”
While Kessler was being taken away by ambulance, the suspect was talking to the police. Protesters were chanting “You will be burned in hell; Israel is going to burn in Hell.”
The police asked the suspect, “So, you tried to smash his phone?”
The pro-Hamas agitators’ blatant antisemitism: “Hitler didn’t want you, Hitler didn’t want you, Hitler didn’t want you, Hitler should’ve smashed you.”
In a press briefing held Tuesday morning, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff announced that a search was conducted at the suspect’s residence in Moorpark (California), about 10 miles away from the protest site. The suspect has been questioned, but not arrested as of yet. Fryhoff stated that a very active investigation is underway and that witnesses have given contradictory statements, which is not surprising, considering what we’ve seen in the video. He stated that Kessler’s death was being investigated as a homicide and that a designation of hate crime had not been ruled out.
At the press conference, Dr. Christopher Young of the Ventura County Chief Medical Examiner said that a CT scan revealed intracranial blood when Kessler first arrived at Los Robles Regional Hospital Sunday afternoon. Kessler then continued to deteriorate and died early on Monday morning.
