Protestors say they were violently attacked at Ron DeSantis campaign event for holding rainbow flag

A group of protestors who were kicked out of a Ron DeSantis campaign event for holding up a Pride flag say they were violently attacked by his supporters as they were being escorted out.

Before the allegations of violence, the story had already been making national headlines due to the fact that DeSantis shouted at one of the protestors as he was being asked to leave. Video shows the GOP presidential candidate shouting, “We don’t want you indoctrinating our children. Leave our kids alone.” His comments were followed by raucous cheers and a standing ovation from the crowd.

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The protestors at the Tega Cay, South Carolina event have since been identified as Claire Jost and Will Sander, both 19. Sander’s younger sister, 16, was also involved but did not want to be publicly identified or interviewed.

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Jost and Sander spoke with Newsweek about the incident, saying the crowd was “very polite until we pulled out our flags.”

Jost said the crowd used “such an excessive use of force.”

“I remember when we held up the flag, someone grabbed me on the shoulder,” he continued. “I turned around, I’m being surrounded. They’re shouting everywhere. People are yelling, ‘Shame on you, shame on you’ and trying to take it away from me.”

According to Florida Politics, it was members of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Moms for Liberty that had been trying to tear the Pride flag from his hands.

But it didn’t end there.

“I felt someone grab me from behind and, like, multiple people were trying to push me to the ground. I got kicked; I actually have some small bruises. I’m glad I wore heavy pants.”

Sander said he was also kicked and then got “violently dragged downstairs.”

Sander was devastated by the fact that people from his own community, where has lived since elementary school, would treat him this way.

“There are my neighbors,” he said. “I’ve lived in this community since I was in second grade. I know several of them personally. I’ve spoken with them… like, it’s kind of horrifying to see how quickly you’re dehumanized.”

“The thing that we want to emphasize is the reaction to what we did because we have a Pride flag, which ostensibly is not political, right? It’s an identity. If we were effectively dragged out and kicked and cursed out by this mob and if it had been an American flag, the reaction would have been entirely different.”

 “I know a lot of DeSantis voters, they seem to be good Christian people. This is a family neighborhood. But how quickly those same people were willing to turn against children that they’ve watched grow up in their neighborhood, just because they held a Pride flag.”

Sander also alleged that staffers forced his sister to get out of her wheelchair and walk as she was being escorted out.

Before the protesters were kicked out, DeSantis was criticizing President Joe Biden for comments he made at the 2023 National and State Teachers of the Year celebration.

He quoted the teacher of the year, who said, “There’s no such thing as someone else’s child,” and then added his own comment, “Our nation’s children are all our children.”

The moment sent conservatives into a rage spiral, as the party has long touted a “parent’s rights platform” as an excuse to pass anti-LGBTQ+ policies. The party claims to believe that parents have the right to make decisions for their children, rather than the government – except when it comes to the rights of trans youth.

“Have you heard Biden? He will say when it comes to children, they’re not your children. They’re all of our children,” DeSantis said, adding that because he is the father of three young children he can say “they’re not his children.”

The current Florida governor has made his vitriolic feelings about the LGBTQ+ community extremely clear.

He has supported several anti-LGBTQ+ policies under the guise of “protecting children” from “sexualization,” and his ruthless campaign against LGBTQ+ youth has led more than half of LGBTQ+ parents to consider leaving Florida, according to a survey from the Williams Institute. In May, he wouldn’t even say whether or not he supports marriage equality, and his presidential campaign has promoted more than one viciously anti-LGBTQ+ ad to brag about DeSantis’s attacks on the community.

DeSantis’s presidential campaign is thought by many to be dead on arrival. He has alienated many from his own party with his relentless focus on culture warring and is currently far behind Donald Trump in the polls. According to RealClearPolitics, DeSantis is polling at 20.9%, compared to Trump’s 53.7%.