Conservative activists driven from restaurant by antifa group

CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 8/13/2018, 3:28 p.m.
Conservative activists Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk were accosted at a Philadelphia restaurant on Monday by protesters from a local …
Conservative activists Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk were accosted at a Philadelphia restaurant on Monday by protesters from a local antifa group.

By Annie Geng, CNN

(CNN) -- Conservative activists Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk were accosted at a Philadelphia restaurant on Monday by protesters from a local antifa group.

Owens and Kirk, who lead the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA, had their breakfast at Green Eggs Café prematurely ended when protests erupted outside.

Owens told CNN that the protesters, who bore an antifa sticker, "immediately recognized" Kirk and her, and a much larger group approached the restaurant about 20 minutes later. She said the protesters began harassing and throwing things at Kirk and her from outside the restaurant.

Videos posted by Owens, who is black, and Kirk on Twitter depict an angry scene in which protesters recite chants such as "f--- white supremacy," "no good cops in a racist system" and "cops and Klan hand-in-hand."

In one video, Owens remarks to a black police officer that it is "bizarre" to her that "there are a bunch of white people saying 'no racists,' or 'no good cops,' when every single cop here is black."

Owens told CNN that the racial split of the scene was "jarring," with the mostly black and Hispanic police officers barricading Kirk and her from the white protesters.

Owens, like Kirk, blames California's Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, who encouraged attendees to protest Trump administration officials whenever possible at a June rally in Los Angeles.

A group called Philly Antifa, members of which describe themselves as "anti-authoritarians and anti-nationalist," took credit for the protests. It is a chapter of the antifa movement, an abbreviation of "anti-fascist."

Posted with a photo in which Kirk has a glass of water dumped on him in today's protests, the group wrote in a tweet, "Charlie Kirk's disgusting homophobic, racist, bigoted presence is met by some proper Philadelphia hostility."

The antifa group pointed to a HuffPost story from April that reported racist comments by employees of Turning Point USA.

Owens repudiated allegations of racism within the company, telling CNN she "would never tolerate racism" and "we 100% would never hire a racist person at Turning Point."

"We're just conservatives. That's just our crime," Owens said.

She continued, "This is not about left and right. This is about right and wrong."

Owens and Kirk declined to press charges.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to state Turning Point USA is a conservative advocacy group.