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Los Angeles: Police seeking footage of altercation which led to death of Jewish man

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(A7) Los Angeles Police are calling for footage to determine what led up to a deadly altercation at a protest over the weekend which resulted in the death of a Jewish man, ABC News reported on Tuesday.

Paul Kessler, a 69-year-old Jewish man, died from blunt-force head trauma following a confrontation with a counterprotester on Sunday, amid simultaneous pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrations in Thousand Oaks, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said.

The Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office said that Kessler suffered from skull fractures and swelling and bruising of the brain and determined his death to be a homicide. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility the incident was a hate crime, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said Tuesday.

Fryhoff said deputies determined that Kessler fell backward and hit his head, though they have received conflicting witness reports from attendees of both rallies about the altercation and “who the aggressor was.”

“What exactly transpired prior to Mr. Kessler falling backwards isn’t crystal clear right now,” Fryhoff said during a press briefing on Tuesday, according to ABC News, adding the investigation is “ongoing and fluid.”

Eyewitnesses quoted in media reports on Monday said that a verbal altercation broke out between Kessler and a young protester, when the protester struck the older man in the head with a megaphone he was holding.

Kessler fell to the ground, bleeding, and was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Fryhoff said on Tuesday that multiple people called the Ventura County Sheriff’s Communication Center to report the incident on Sunday afternoon.

Among those to call 911 was the suspect in the incident — a 50-year-old Moorpark resident who was attending the pro-Palestinian Arab demonstration, according to Fryhoff.

Fryhoff said the suspect remained at the scene and was interviewed.

“The suspect was cooperative and indicated he was involved in an altercation with Mr. Kessler,” Fryhoff said, adding that a search warrant was executed on the suspect’s home on Monday afternoon, without providing further details.

No arrests have been made in the case and the suspect is not being identified publicly.

Ventura County Chief Medical Examiner Christopher Young said Kessler’s death was ruled a homicide because another individual was involved but also noted, “A manner of death of homicide does not indicate that a crime has been committed.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles issued a statement on the incident on Monday, saying, “Our hearts are with the family of the victim. While we wait for more information from our law enforcement partners, we remind you that this is the fourth major antisemitic crime committed in Los Angeles this year alone.”

“Violence against our people has no place in civilized society,” it added. “We demand safety. We will not tolerate violence against our community. We will do everything in our power to prevent it.”

The incident comes amid a disturbing rise in antisemitism in the US, in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Two weeks ago, a man yelled “Free Palestine” as he was being taken into custody after trying to break into the home of a Jewish family in the Studio City area of Los Angeles.

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Elsewhere in the US, a Jewish student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was assaulted on Friday night during a Shabbat event in honor of the hundreds of Israelis taken hostage by the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

In Florida, a man was charged with calling a Jewish organization and threatening to kill Jewish people, after he allegedly called the World Jewish Congress in New York City and left a threatening voicemail.

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