A 20-year-old man arrested on suspicion of assaulting a counter-protester during Denver’s No Kings demonstration is being now investigated for theft after investigators say he was not involved in the physical altercation.
The fight started when a middle-aged man interjected himself into Saturday’s march through downtown Denver, shouting “God Bless Trump,” expletives and a slur before he fell in a street fracas and suffered a serious injury, according to the Denver Police Department.
A circulating on social media showed the older man, wearing a blue New York Giants logo shirt, gesturing at and deriding demonstrators on Saturday afternoon as they rallied near Denver’s Union Station. A younger man with a skateboard appeared to grab the man’s sunglasses off of his face, and the older man chased him and fell against pavement on his face, the video shows.
He got up and ran again, then was tripped and fell onto the street by a curb against his head. Bleeding, he got up again and, with friends, ran and clashed with demonstrators. Some demonstrators tried to help him, pointing to his head suggesting he needed medical care as blood covered the left side of his face.
Denver police arrested Jose Cardenas on suspicion of second-degree assault after tracking him from Wynkoop Street, where the assault occurred at about 2:30 p.m., to North Lincoln Street near the intersection with 14th Avenue.
The victim identified Cardenas as the one who assaulted him, but police on Tuesday said Cardenas is accused of stealing the man’s glasses and did not trip or injure the man.
The person who tripped him has not been identified.
