The display of firearms took place after the Proud Boys jumped the fences and ran at the antifascist protesters. During the fracas, a woman was knocked to the ground, and the Proud Boys seized at least one of the leftists’ banners before forcing them to retreat.
The protest against the Proud Boys was organized by the Progressive Labor Party of Kentucky, a revolutionary communist group, which issued a call to “oppose the Proud Boys” in defense of “the interconnected queer community” in the midst of an ongoing effort to “remove books from the local public library.” The protest drew a contingent of antifascists from Middle Tennessee, along with Owensboro locals.
A video posted by the Bluesky account of the Nashville-based Antifascist 615 group shows a woman leading a small child inside the private residence after several Proud Boys jumped the fence to confront the leftist protesters. Another video shows a woman with the Proud Boys angrily confronting an antifascist live-streamer about one of the leftists “pointing a f---ing gun when there are kids in the way.”
The unidentified live-streamer can be heard commenting on the video, which has since been taken down but has been reviewed by Raw Story: “Actually, I am pretty p---ed off about that. I didn’t know he had a f---ing gun.” She added, “Why the f--- did he pull it in the direction that children are at — the f---ing idiot.”
Another antifascist can be heard off-camera stating that the individual who pulled the gun was from Tennessee.
Members of the Proud Boys told police officers that responded to the disturbance that “one of the protesters was ‘brandishing’ a weapon at the group,” according to an incident report. The leftist protesters, in turn, told the police that “the Proud Boys pulled multiple firearms at the group.”
It’s unclear which side drew first, but in one of the videos reviewed by Raw Story, a male voice can be heard asking, “You guys got a gun?”
About three seconds later, a man wearing a Green River Proud Boys shirt turns and walks towards another man wearing the Proud Boys customary black and yellow colors. The second man can be seen pointing back towards the residence and then handing the first man a large handgun.
“Get away from my family, now,” the Green River Proud Boy says while holding the handgun pointed to the side across his stomach. Then he throws the gun on the ground and points his finger at one of the antifascist protesters, saying, “I want to f--- you up.”
When officers arrived on the scene, they found the two groups in a verbal argument. The Proud Boys started walking back to the residence and the antifascist protesters headed back to the parking lot. The police did not make any arrests.
Mark Hammonds, the public information officer for the Owensboro Police Department, told Raw Story that the officer “determined there was no criminal acts that were actually committed.”
“This is far from the first time that armed antifascists have faced off with members of the Proud Boys,” Kieran Doyle, a research manager for the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, told Raw Story.
Doyle cited an armed standoff between antifascists and Proud Boys at the Ohio state capitol in January 2024, which similarly concluded without an exchange of fire. But in August 2020, a self-described antifascist, Michael Reinoehl, fatally shot and killed Aaron Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer. Reinhold was himself fatally shot by members of a U.S. Marshals task force before any criminal charges were brought against him.
According to data collected by ACLED since the beginning of 2020, the presence of firearms at demonstrations makes them seven times more likely to turn violent or destructive.
About an hour before the confrontation in Owensboro, the antifascist protesters called the police to report that one of the Proud Boys members rode his motorcycle into the parking lot at the park “and began to circle them while revving his engine.” Video of the incident shows the Proud Boy getting off the motorcycle and repeatedly calling a Black protester the n-word.
One of the leftist protesters told the police that the man “threatened to go get the other Proud Boys and come back to the park,” according to the incident report.
An Owensboro resident who identified himself as “Ramos” told Raw Story that more moderate leftists and liberals in the community discouraged people from attending the protest against the Proud Boys. Others, he said, proposed a less confrontational alternative such as holding a demonstration “on a busy street about a mile away.”
Ramos defended the decision to approach the private residence where the Proud Boys were gathering.
“I think it was necessary that they saw us so they knew anytime you want to be in our hometown and spread racism, people will be there to stop you,” he said. “We were saying, ‘Hey, we don’t stand for that.’”
Ramos told Raw Story he saw the Proud Boys draw guns but didn’t observe anyone from the antifascist side with firearms.
The Progressive Labor Party of Kentucky, the group that organized the protest, could not be reached for this story.
The recent confrontation in Owensboro comes at a time when the United States is undergoing the “largest sustained protest movement” since 2020 and when the recent assassination of a state lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota reflects rising political tensions, Doyle said. But he said that he wouldn’t view Owensboro as a national bellwether, even if it had resulted in death or injury.
The context of what took place in Owensboro is different than previous confrontations, Doyle said, noting that Portland had already undergone years of opposing demonstrations often leading to clashes before the fatal shooting in August 2020. In contrast, Owensboro has only seen peaceful protests since 2020, according to ACLED’s data.
“Still, it’s never wise to encourage anything other than vigilance, especially when it comes to the behavior of extremist groups,” Doyle said. “It’s also likely that any escalation of tensions from this incident will be most acutely felt in the community where it took place. However, it seems too soon to predict any kind of larger scale escalation based on this incident alone, especially since fortunately, no major incidents of violence appear to have taken place.”
