Seattle journalists attacked by agitators call out far-left media for covering up violence at protests

Two independent journalists who say they were assaulted while covering immigration protests in Seattle accused local media outlets and city leaders of turning a blind eye to violence from the radical far-left agitators.
Cameron Higby is an investigative journalist who focuses mostly on protests, especially those of the violent variant. He described his scary encounter at an anti-ICE rally in downtown Seattle in detail with Fox News Digital.
As evening fell, he said Antifa took over streets downtown and became violent. Videos posted to his social media show rioters trying to break into buildings and blocking cars from being able to proceed through the area. Higby said that Antifa stopped drivers and demanded they say, "F— ICE" and lit fires under the cars of drivers who wouldn't comply. One video clip shows rioters hurling an object at a car that tried to escape. According to him, one woman was "so terrified that she abandoned her vehicle in traffic."
Once Antifa returned to the federal building, Higby said things quieted down, so he sat down on the sidewalk. Even though he was dressed like Antifa and wearing a gas mask, he was identified by one man who told him to leave.
"Before I could stand up I was pinned up against a wall," he said.
Higby said three men approached and tried to remove his mask and helmet.
"Then I was picked up by somebody and was choked out, punched in the head twice with sap gloves, which are filled with steel or lead shot. And then he kicked me in the face. I pepper sprayed him and he ran away. They then later found a black Jeep Wrangler that they thought belonged to me. They destroyed it, and the poor guy had to drive his car home with a busted windshield," Higby recalled.
"I ended up with a concussion, nausea, dizziness, ringing in the ears, light flashes, and some headaches. I had to go to the ER and urgent care."
Higby is no stranger to violent behavior at protests he's covered in the past – sharing that one day he was bear sprayed at "point-blank." But he said this weekend's assault left him shaken like never before.
"This is definitely the worst attack I've had on me, depending on how you look at it. I've been assaulted a lot, probably more times than I could count. This is probably the most violent assault. If I wasn't wearing a helmet, I'd probably be dead or in the hospital in critical condition. I mean the staff clubs are like brass knuckles basically. The helmet's dented and he punched me so hard that if you slow the video down you can see the filter of the gas mask actually fly off just from the impact of the hit."
"This literally could've killed me," he said of the assault, which video only captured after it was already underway. "If one of my friends hadn't grabbed him and pulled him back, if that hadn't happened, he probably would have kept going."
"Thankfully, I was able to grab my car keys and my phone and all that. Otherwise, even if I managed to get away, I would have been stranded. I couldn't contact anybody, I wouldn't be able to drive my car," Higby added.
Higby claimed that his sources told him the Seattle Police Department was told not to intervene in the protest – a decision he said would have come from city officials.
"There is a detective on the case now. So it's an extremely slow crawl, and we've just had to twist the arm of the SPD," he said. "I don't have any animosity towards the rank-and-file police officers… I know SPD wants to take care of this problem, but they just can't."
The Seattle PD confirmed to Fox News Digital that Higby filed a police report. As for media coverage, Higby said the local media "hasn't covered anything about it," and The Seattle Times, along with Mayor Bruce Harrell, "said everything was peaceful, it's all good."
Brandi Kruse is another local, independent journalist who was attacked by masked protesters on Saturday at an anti-ICE protest in Tukwila, Washington, just south of Seattle.
She was out covering the anti-Trump "No Kings" protest in the city that day when her team heard that Antifa was planning to try to disrupt immigration enforcement activities outside a Department of Homeland Security facility in Tukwila.
While the "No Kings" protest had remained peaceful, things quickly escalated into violence after Kruse arrived at the DHS Antifa protest.
"At that point, there hadn't been any sort of confrontations between police and these protesters," she recalled. "I would say it took less than two minutes for the assaults to start. So we didn't even really get a chance to do any reporting on the ground there because, within moments, this group was mobbing us."
Video of the encounter that Kruse posted to YouTube shows protesters spraying her with water and trying to block her camera with black umbrellas and protest signs. Several people surrounded Kruse and her armed security member while chanting, "F— you, fascist," and "Nazi." As Kruse and her team walks away from the crowd to create some distance, they continued to follow her and harass her, she says.
"They had no interest in leaving me alone. They kept yelling at me to leave," she continued. Kruse said a woman dumped a full water bottle on her head, a few people hit her from behind with their signs and one man ran at them and sprayed insecticide in her face as her team tried to get away.
"This thing sprayed a pretty far distance and it burned immediately. And that person followed us for maybe 10, 20 feet, just continuing to spray us in the face with what we later found out was hornet killer," Kruse explained.
Things turned violent after an undercover army veteran offered assistance to Kruse and her team.
"As soon as Antifa realized that this army veteran was with us they pounced on him," she said. "There's this part of the video that shows them knocking him to the ground. There's maybe six or seven black-clad Antifa members, and they're kicking him. They're stomping him. It was absolutely brutal."
She said one person threatened the man with a gun before Kruse's security was able to pull the "innocent bystander" out. Another civilian drove up at this moment and rescued the three from the violent crowd.
"At that point, I didn't really know the driver, but I knew that it was probably better than the situation we're in. So we pile in with this guy, and we just take off as they're pelting his vehicle with who knows what," she said.
Kruse filed a police report with the Tukwila PD afterward. The police confirmed to Fox News Digital a report had been filed, and an investigation was ongoing.
Kruse is familiar with these protests, having covered them extensively in her 15-year journalism career. She previously worked at a Fox affiliate in Seattle for several years and now hosts a political commentary show called "Undivided." In her experience, it's not unusual for Antifa to attack journalists or "anyone who is exposing their criminal conduct."
She said she was previously assaulted by Antifa during the 2020 summer of protests when the group took over parts of the city. Kruse recalls this experience in the new Fox Nation streaming series, "Summer of Chaos: Inside Seattle's CHOP Zone."
"This is a very violent faction of left-wing extremists with a long history of assaulting journalists in Seattle, including myself," Kruse said.
She accused local left-wing outlets like The Seattle Times of covering for violent extremists.
On Saturday night, the paper published a report on the protest without mentioning the violence by the protesters. Their report documents Tukwila Police using tear gas against protesters and frames law enforcement as the instigators of violence.
"If you'd just read The Seattle Times article, you would think that the police unleashed on peaceful demonstrators," Kruse said. "So you have these media outlets that absolutely cover for violent left-wing extremists. And so Antifa doesn't target them in the same way, because why would they?"
The Seattle Times and Mayor Bruce Harrell's office did not return requests for comment.

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