courtesy: The Atlantic
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As a result of fatal crash between suburban protesters in South California threatened to become an international incident on Tuesday, the authorities stated that it was “exactly clear” over how a 69-year-old Jewish man died from an altercation with a pro-Palestinian demonstrator over the weekend.
At a packed press conference, Ventura County Sheriff, Jim Fryhoff, called for calm as he asserted that his office is investigating whether the death should be criminally charged under homicide and hate crime.
However, there has been no arrests made in the case, which stemmed from a dispute on Sunday afternoon amid dueling demonstrations at an intersection in Thousand Oaks, California, a suburb about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
The sheriff revealed that the investigators have questioned a 50-year-old man from a nearby suburb who had participated in the pro-Palestine protest. The officials have also searched his residence on Monday, but they are still trying to sort out the events that led up to the death of Jewish protestor, Paul Kessler.
Witnesses have claimed that Kessler engaged in an argument with pro-Palestinian protestors on Sunday and had fallen during the altercation, sustaining a head injury, reveals the sheriff. He added that Kessler was conscious and responsive when the law officers arrived at the scene, and also at the hospital when they spoke to him again.
He later died on Monday morning, and an autopsy by Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office determined the cause to be a blunt force injury to the back of his head.