Ten members and associates of the Proud Boys, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has called a “hate group,” were arrested as a result of the altercation. And this week, two are going to trial in what appears to be the first time members of the group, which have clashed with left-wing opponents in other parts of the country, will appear before a jury to face charges stemming from an attack.
Jurors, however, are unlikely to hear from any of those who were beaten.
The four victims have not cooperated with the authorities, who do not even know their names. They are identified in an indictment only as Shaved Head, Ponytail, Khaki and Spiky Belt.
Phillip Walzak, the Police Department’s main spokesman, said footage from police body cameras showed that victims refused to talk with officers who sought statements after arriving on 82nd Street as the attacks were taking place.
As a result, prosecutors have been unable to pursue charges of assault, which requires evidence of injury. Instead, the defendants have been charged with riot and with attempted assault, which requires only evidence of intent to cause injury.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to lean heavily on video from multiple sources that show the defendants — Maxwell Hare, who prosecutors said started the fighting, and John Kinsman, accused by prosecutors of being “the single most vicious of all the attackers”— punching and kicking protesters.
“The primary evidence before the grand jury — and the only evidence of how the physical altercation began — was video evidence,” a prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, wrote in a court filing.
Daniel R. Alonso, a former federal prosecutor and former chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said that trying a criminal case without victim testimony may be somewhat unusual, but is hardly unheard-of.
“The law doesn’t specify any particular method by which the DA is required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
The trial is sure to be watched closely, in large part because it will explore events that fit into a broad pattern of violence defined by clashing ideologies.
“This case involves allegations of a violent clash between two opposing groups,” Justice Mark J. Dwyer of state Supreme Court in Manhattan told prospective jurors Monday.
Over the past few years, far-right groups, often denouncing communism or calling for “free speech,” have fought repeatedly with a loose-knit coalition of self-described anti-fascists known as Antifa, who say that the right-wing groups are a threat that should be countered physically.
Roiling conflicts — in places like Berkeley, California; Portland, Maine; and Providence, Rhode Island — have included the use of homemade shields, clubs, batons and pepper spray. In 2017, a participant in a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing a woman named Heather Heyer. The driver, James Fields Jr., was sentenced to life in prison last month.
Members of the Proud Boys were at that rally and have shown up at other events attended by white supremacists or extremists. But leaders of the group — which includes nationalists and libertarians who oppose Islam, feminism and liberal politics — say they disavow racism and hate.
The Upper East Side incident took place after Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice magazine who started the Proud Boys in New York City in 2016, appeared at the Metropolitan Republican Club on 83rd Street.
Afterward, police said, a small group of protesters circled the block attempting to intercept a large number of Proud Boys walking south on Park Avenue.
A video documentarian, Sandi Bachom, recorded part of the fighting on East 82nd Street. Footage from a man, Christopher Wright, who accompanied the Proud Boys that night, depicted some exulting afterward, and Hare shouting that he had “smashed” a victim’s head.
Public reaction was swift. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo condemned the Proud Boys. Its members were banned from Instagram and Facebook. In November, McInnes said he was quitting the group.
Before that, though, he insisted that Antifa members, including one who threw a plastic bottle, had ambushed the Proud Boys that night. Lawyers for several defendants made similar claims during their arraignments.
But security camera footage obtained by The New York Times showed that members of the Proud Boys initiated the encounter by charging at the protesters, who had halted about 100 feet from Park Avenue.
Five defendants have pleaded guilty to charges including riot, disorderly conduct and attempted assault and been sentenced to a conditional discharge and five days of community service.
Another, Kyle Borello, pleaded guilty to riot and attempted assault but will be allowed to withdraw those pleas and plead guilty to disorderly conduct with a sentence of time served if he completes 10 days of community service and has no new arrests for a year.
A seventh defendant, Geoffrey Young, pleaded guilty to riot and attempted assault and was sentenced to 10 months of weekend jail.
The eighth, David Kuriakose, is expected to go to trial in the fall.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.