DOJ Opens Investigation Into Mob Attack on Conservative Journalist in Minneapolis

A mob assault on a female journalist during an anti-ICE demonstration in Minneapolis over the weekend is being investigated by the FBI and Department of Justice.

Savanah Hernandez, a reporter for Turning Point USA (TPUSA), was mobbed by violent and unhinged anti-ICE agitators outside the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Saturday as she was filming the protest.

The Whipple Building, the center of federal immigration enforcement activity in the region, has been the site of many demonstrations and riots in the past several months. During the Operation Metro Surge campaign, anti-ICE agitators gathered around the building on a daily basis. Anti-ICE militants have continued to gather outside to protest even after the campaign’s end.

Multiple videos show the agitators aggressively surrounding Hernandez, punching her, hitting her with dildos, and shoving her to the ground, all while they screeched profanities and blew their whistles in her ears. Her glasses were reportedly broken during the attack.

Hernandez reported on X that the agitators had chanted that they were Antifa “and proved it, by mobbing and beating me for reporting on a public protest.”

Three individuals—Paige Ostroushko, her father Chris Ostroushko, and mother Deyanna Ostroushko—were identified in social media posts and videos as participants in the assault.

After the mother and another woman waved rubber dildos in Hernandez’s face and screamed at her, the daughter came in close and blew a whistle directly in the journalist’s ear. Hernandez held out her arm an attempt to keep the agitators at bay as she tried to retreat while being hounded by horn and whistle blowing agitators.

“Get away from me!” Hernandez shouted as Paige continued blowing the whistle in her ear. As Hernandez tried to move through the mob as it pressed in, Paige struck her, and pushed her to the ground.

“You f-cking hit my daughter?!” Deyanna Ostroushko bellowed after Hernandez got back up.

“Stop touching me!” Hernandez cried at the mob. At this point, Chris Ostroushko came up to her from behind and brutally pushed her to the ground.

After Hernandez took a defensive swipe at Paige, the mother and daughter furiously descended on her, pummeling her to the ground and knocking her glasses off.

Hernandez eventually made her way toward some Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies who escorted her away from the mob.

Later, when the deputies moved in to arrest Paige, she violently resisted and had to be forcibly detained. A full riot then broke out with multiple arrests, although somehow Chris Ostroushko managed to walk away free, according to popular X account Kim “Katie” USA.

“I’m waking up with a headache and stiff neck this morning due to how violently anti-ICE activist, Chris Ostroushko, shoved me down yesterday,” Hernandez posted on X Sunday morning.

A second angle shows that he had to be held back by 5 men as he continued to charge at me.

I didn’t speak a word to him all day yet he repeatedly called me a bitch and very clearly looks like he wanted to violently hurt me even worse than he did.

I’m happy to report that charges will be brought against this man, his wife and daughter.

Townhall reporter Dustin Grage pointed out on X that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had previously done a “puff piece” on Chris Ostroushko, depicting him as a “suburban soccer dad” and “unlikely activist.”

“I’m not the rah, rah, get-in-your-face, yelling-and-screaming type of person,” he told the paper.

Moreover, as X account “I Meme Therefore I Am” revealed, the brute was also recently featured on Jen Psaki’s MS Now show, where he talked about the need for “peace, love and harmony.”

The Bulwark also had Ostroushko on its podcast to discuss how “thuggish” ICE had allegedly knocked a female agitator to the ground.

Meanwhile, CrimeWatchMpls reported that Ostroushko was convicted of defrauding the state unemployment program of nearly $7000 in the early 2000s.

Desiree Ostroushko, the second daughter of Chris and DeYanna Ostroushko, released a statement over the weekend saying that she does not “align” with her family and has chosen to distance herself from them.

The estranged daughter said she’s “seen and experienced enough firsthand to know the kind of actions they’re capable of.”

“This is honestly horrifying to read after how violent her father, mother and sister acted publicly,” Hernandez commented on X. “I can’t imagine what she’s had to deal with privately.”

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that four people will be charged, with three in connection with the assault and one for obstructing a deputy with force.

The FBI and Department of Justice are investigating the incident, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon signaling federal action after Hernandez accused William Kelly, a previously charged activist, of inciting the mob.

Kelly was one of the anti-ICE agitators who stormed a Church in St. Paul back in January, an infraction that resulted in multiple arrests, including his own.

Hernandez posted videos of the attack on social media, Saturday.

On the same day,  Dhillon responded to Hernandez’s post, saying the DOJ was ‘on it’.

Conservative lawyer and political strategist Mike Davis stated on X that he was pushing for federal charges against the anti-ICE agitators.

The woman who hit Hernandez in the face with a dildo, he said, “must face sexual assault charges” and be forced to “register as a sex offender.”

Davis thanked FBI Director Kash Patel for opening an investigation into the attack.