‘Proud Boys’ founder says several members involved in street brawl will surrender to police

The founder of the far-right “Proud Boys” group said Friday that several of its members are preparing to surrender to the police for their part in a brawl outside a Republican club in New York earlier this month. 

Gavin McInnes said that eight of the suspects would turn themselves in just a day after the New York Police Department made its first arrest in connection with the street fight, according to The New York Times.

{mosads}A police official also told the newspaper that a lawyer representing at least four of the suspects called the police to address the details of their surrender. 

“They are going to be in the Tombs by tonight,” McInness, who is also Vice Media co-founder said, according to the Times. 

The prepared surrender follows a brawl that erupted after McInnes delivered a speech last Friday at the Metropolitan Republican Club on the Upper East Side. 

Video released by the NYPD shows many of the group’s members fighting with anti-fascist demonstrators that protested McInnes’s speech. 

On Friday at approx 8:23 pm there was an altercation which was widely distributed via social media on 82nd between Lexington to Park, here’s another angle of the video. We need your help identifying these individuals please contact @NYPDTips 800-577-TIPSpic.twitter.com/ndII6m0aLc

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) October 15, 2018

Police arrested three men on Friday night that were protesting McInnes’s speech, but did not detain any members of the Proud Boys. 

NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said later at a news conference on Monday that the department felt confident it could “sustain charges of riot or attempted assault” against nine of the far-right group’s members. 

On Thursday, the NYPD arrested Geoffrey Young, 38, for his part in the brawl. He faces charges of rioting and attempted assault and is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday

A senior official with the NYPD has also told the Times that the police have opened a broad criminal inquiry into the far-right group.