A witness to the fatal altercation between Paul Kessler and a pro-Palestinian protester said Tuesday that the suspect “stalked” he and Kessler during the demonstration, recording them with his phone and harassing them with a bullhorn.
Kessler got into a “physical altercation” with a pro-Palestinian protester on Sunday in Ventura County, just outside Los Angeles. He suffered non-lethal injuries to his face and a lethal injury to the back of his head consistent with a fall. The medical examiner’s office concluded that Kessler’s death was a homicide and the investigation remains ongoing.
Speaking to reporters at the site of Kessler’s death on Tuesday, Jonathan Oswaks explained that he and Kessler arrived at the corner of Westlake Boulevard and Thousand Oaks Boulevard ahead of the planned pro-Palestinian demonstration.
Tensions were high before the protest began — while waiting, Oswaks received a call from a friend who saw his face on a live social media feed, to let him know he was “being watched.” Oswaks looked over and saw three men sitting on a bench — seemingly the source of the live video. Oswaks would later claim to recognize one of them as the man who killed Kessler.
“One of those men I recognize as the murderer,” Oswaks said. “The other man was an extreme agitator. The other fellow was just a young fellow, I couldn’t tell much about him.”
As the protest began, Oswaks and Kessler walked over to the Westlake-Thousand Oaks intersection to meet with Oswaks’s friends who brought three flags: an Israeli flag, an American flag and the Gadsden flag.
“Paul insisted on holding the Israeli flag,” Oswaks said. “I asked him at least three times to give it to me. Paul was a lot smaller than I am. He was like David. He was proud to hold that flag against the giant.” The group split up to each of the four corners of the intersection, to distribute their presence more evenly.
Oswaks recounted that Kessler told him “at these kinds of protests, somebody taking a megaphone and putting in your ear for purposes of harassing you is an assault.”
“It wasn’t long before the men that were videoing me and Paul stood behind me … with a megaphone in my ear, exactly the way [Kessler] told me it was going to happen,” Oswaks said, adding that he immediately told the men, “Get that f—ing thing out of my ear. Back up.”
“He crossed the street because, as I said, he stalked us,” Oswaks continued. “He got nowhere with the bigger guy, so he went for the smaller guy. He came over here with the megaphone in his hand to do the same thing.
Oswaks said he “could hear the noise starting” from across the street. “Then all of a sudden, I see a punch,” he said. “The reason I know I could see the punch was because it was the white megaphone flying through the air.”
At first, Oswaks didn’t know exactly what had happened. He said that once “the megaphone came over the top” of the crowd, a group of “maybe 8-10 people… closed ranks really quick to see what was going on, so it obscured my vision.”
Law enforcement, an ambulance, and a fire truck arrived at the scene. Oswaks did not know that Kessler had been hurt — he assumed that whatever had happened, the emergency responders had it under control, and there was no need for him to go to the scene.
It was not until the first responders left that Oswaks walked across the street and learned that Kessler was the victim and that he had been taken to the hospital. Oswaks said a friend later told him that Kessler had succumbed to his injuries. Oswaks said he is “broken” over Kessler’s death.
A Jewish engineer who resides in the area, Oswaks first met Kessler, a medical salesman, a couple weeks ago through the neighborhood app Nextdoor. The two of them alone mounted a counter-protest against a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the area on October 29. Oswaks claimed they were harassed by the protesters there and that one pushed him into the street and flashed a gun at him. However, this did not deter Oswaks and Kessler from organizing a larger counter-protest, where Kessler would receive the fatal blow.
Oswaks described Kessler as “a passionate Jew.” He learned that Kessler was a father to two children — one of whom had passed away — and that Kessler’s wife had cautioned him about attending Sunday’s protest, because “those people want to hurt you.”
Oswaks also criticized law enforcement for not arresting the suspect. “If it was me and I hit somebody, I would have been handcuffed and taken away,” Oswaks argued. “This is the same bulls— that’s happening in our streets. They’re letting people go through our shopping centers, destroying them. The police presence is nowhere to be found. Nowhere! None of you are safe. I don’t know if you even realize that. It’s not being reported on the news. Hopefully this will get the trick done.”
Oswaks recalled talking to a friend, a retired FBI agent, the night before the fatal protest. His friend told him how “the sheer number” of pro-Palestinian protesters in Europe and big American cities “dwarf the police departments. I experienced it myself. They want nothing to do with it.”
Oswaks said his friend warned him that, unless the governor deploys the National Guard against the protesters, “you’re on your own.” Oswaks later added: “Thank God for the Second Amendment I guess, right?”
At that point in the press conference, someone shouted, “Free Palestine!”
The suspect has been identified as a 50-year-old male Moorpark resident. He has been cooperative with law enforcement, according to the sheriff’s office. The suspect has not been taken into custody.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office told the press that they had received “conflicting” eyewitness accounts of the altercation that occurred between Kessler and the man suspected of killing him. The sheriff’s office has not ruled out a hate crime.