Nearly a year ago, an event hosted by Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Buffalo was marred when a large group of protesters showed up to assault and intimidate conservative students.
According to reports at the time, dozens of people targeted three students associated with YAF and chased them away from the venue. Police noted that the conservative students reported having been subjected to harassment for several months prior to the April incident.
Two of the targeted students were reportedly able to outrun their pursuers, though one did so without shoes and was able to seek shelter in a restroom. The third, however, was reportedly “kicked … in the testicles” and punched multiple times.
Despite having evidence of the mob attack, the Erie County District Attorney’s Office indicated that no criminal charges will be filed in the case. Prosecutors claimed that they “could not prove that a crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
The allegedly assaulted student said he was unable to identify his attackers.
Former UB YAF Chair Therese Purcell said she was “unbelievably disturbed” by the incident, stating that she was “chased by a leftist mob” because of her role in organizing a conservative event on campus.
NEW footage obtained by YAF shows several hundred BLM protestors chasing @YAF_UB Chairwoman Therese Purcell off into a men’s bathroom.
She had to call 911 to be escorted to safety. pic.twitter.com/oK8onZbmWM
— YAF (@yaf) April 8, 2022
“I was aggressively chased by about 200 angry protesters and had to hide in a men’s bathroom from screaming leftists who were searching for me,” she added. “The assault on free speech at University of Buffalo by an angry mob is incredibly unacceptable.”
University spokesperson John Della Contrada asserted: “Although numerous individuals could be seen on security video following students through the campus after the event, the intent to harass or cause physical harm by any specific individual(s) could not be proven by the available evidence.”
State law stipulates that harassment charges may be filed for anyone who follows another person in public with the “intent to harass, annoy, or alarm.”
Former U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL), who was the guest speaker at the disrupted event, subsequently described what he experienced.
“I think people have seen now that it was a mob, it was radical, it was militant, and I had to be escorted off of the campus by police officers,” he said. “And then after that, they turned their angst against many of those conservative students that were there who had invited me to come and speak.”
