MIAMI — About three dozen people gathered outside John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah Saturday to rally in support of Christopher Monzon, the GOP canvasser brutally beaten earlier this week about a mile away — an attack that Monzon’s family and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said was politically motivated.
The protest on Saturday morning, as voters filed into the early voting site steps away, was organized by people with past or present links to the Proud Boys, a national white supremacist organization. They handed out door hangers with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political platform and prepared to canvass in the nearby homes, a symbolic gesture to finish knocking on the doors Monzon did not get to before he was assaulted.
Protesters waved American flags and Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis gear, and held large, blown-up photos of Monzon lying injured in a hospital bed. Several wore t-shirts and hats marked with Proud Boy insignia. Some covered their faces with Proud Boy bandannas. The blame for the attack was laid squarely on Democrats.
“Chris cannot walk today because of the rhetoric of Joe Biden,” Gabe Carrera, one of the organizers, told the crowd.
After a large enough crowd had gathered, four Proud Boys with bandannas hiding their faces led about a dozen protesters through the neighborhood where the attack happened. They handed out DeSantis fliers and carried U.S. flags, “Don’t tread on me” flags and a “Let’s go Brandon” flag, a vulgar insult to the president based on an inside joke.
The beating of Monzon, about two weeks before Election Day, has received widespread media attention after Rubio — who is running for reelection — publicized an early version of the events on Monday morning, saying Monzon was beaten because he is a Republican.
Police say two men confronted Monzon as he passed out fliers south of Amelia Earhart Park in Hialeah, a largely Republican and Cuban American city. Monzon told police that both alleged attackers — Javier Jesus Lopez and Jonathan Alexander Casanova — punched, kicked and slammed him on the pavement, as one of them directed his German shepherds to attack him.
It later surfaced that Monzon had a long history of involvement in extremist protests and groups, including the Florida chapter of League of South, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a white supremacist hate group. He has been quoted in recent news articles as sayig he is a former extremist who has renounced political violence.
Monzon himself attended the rally on Saturday, and walked in and out of the polling site to vote. In a brief and exclusive interview, he told the Miami Herald on Saturday that he wanted to “clear his name” and for “justice to be done.”
“All I want is for the truth about what happened to get out. And the truth is it was politically motivated. The truth is this could happen to anyone. And I don’t want it to happen to anyone. Whether they’re Democrat or Republican,” said Monzon, who wouldn’t answer questions about the incident.
The initial Hialeah police report made no mention of a political motive. After Cedeno called in to a radio station describing the beating and said his son was wearing a Rubio shirt, the host declared it a politically motivated attack, blaming “leftists.” Following that radio segment, Rubio talked to the father and tweeted to his 4.4 million followers that the canvasser had been beaten by four “animals” who said Republicans weren’t welcome in the neighborhood.
Hialeah officers reinterviewed Monzon and issued a new report. In that one, Monzon is quoted as saying the attackers went after him because he was a Republican.
While the attack has been condemned by Florida politicians of both parties, the attack has also drawn criticism from Democrats questioning why the Republican Part of Florida was employing someone with ties to racist and anti-Semitic hate groups.
“The Republican Party of Florida needs to wake up and make sure they distance themselves and not hire people like Mr. Monzon,” said Florida Senator Lori Berman, a Palm Beach Democrat, during a call with reporters on Friday. “I urge Marco Rubio and the governor to please say that they do not support white supremacy.”
On Saturday, organizers opened the rally by praying for God to heal Monzon and to stop communism. Carrera, a lawyer from Broward County, compared the German shepherds that one of Monzon’s assailants threatened to set loose on him to the dogs that sheriffs in the Civil Rights era used to attack African-American freedom marchers.
The organizers also played a clip of Rubio criticizing media coverage of the incident at a Friday press conference.
Monzon’s father, Reynaldo Cedeno, called into the rally around noon and addressed the crowd.
“What they did was an animalistic, cowardly act and I thank you all for coming from the bottom of my heart,” Cedeno said as an organizer held the microphone up to the phone.
He said Monzon was still struggling and had serious injuries to his right eye. Cedeno expressed regret for not attending the rally in person but said he needed to take his son to Bascom Palmer to have his injuries examined.
“Keep up the good fight. Let’s not let these thugs get away with what they did,” Cedeno said to the crowd of a few dozen people.
He then joined in a prayer for his son before hanging up.
Another organizer, Gabriel García, a Miami-Dade GOP committeeman who is facing a federal trial for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, said protesters would head to the neighborhood where Monzon was beaten to hand out fliers, knock on doors and “finish his work.” Hialeah, he pointed out, is GOP territory.
“I’m even more surprised that it happened in Hialeah, a primarily Republican area,” García said.
Canvassing near the home of alleged attacker
As some protesters knocked on doors and a few Proud Boys stood by, motorcycle cops stopped traffic at East 60th Street and Palm Avenue to let the group cross.
Outside the house of one Monzon’s assailants, Javier Lopez, the masked men led the crowd in chants of, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
Two police SUV vehicles and four officers stood watch outside the house with caution tape preventing the group from approaching. A caravan of protesters drove their cars by loudly honking their horns.
“Republicans are welcome here,” one man shouted.
Angel Llerena, 25, was walking around his Hialeah neighborhood with his wife on the evening on Oct. 23 when he said he saw two young men with a large, black German shepherd hanging out around a white suburban truck parked across the street.
“They looked at us and they were kind of spooked,” Llerena said. One of the men waved, he said. The other shushed the dog, which had started to bark at the couple across the street.
“There was something in the trunk of the car. It was open,” Llerena said. “It was dark. I was not able to see. But there was a heavy smell of marijuana.”
He said he learned the men’s names the next day on the news: Lopez and Casanova, who have been charged with attacking a Republican canvasser. He said he recognized the men immediately.
He and his wife did not witness the attack, which he said happened about 30 minutes after he saw the duo hanging out by the truck.
Llerena is a conservative, he said, as are almost all of his neighbors. An attack on a Republican canvasser was particularly strange in his majority-Cuban neighborhood, he said.
When asked what he initially thought motivated the attack, Llerena said, “I think it was drugs.” He doubted it was about politics.
Llerena joined a group of several-dozen protesters led by the Proud Boys outside Lopez’s home Saturday afternoon. He said he was not affiliated with the protesters, but came out when they walked by to share his story. He carried a sign supporting DeSantis.
While an initial invitation to the event promised appearances from local politicians such as Hialeah Mayor Esteban ‘Steve’ Bovo, none showed up.
García told the crowd he had invited Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava, who is a Democrat but holds a nonpartisan seat.
“She’s a no-show because this doesn’t involve taking a knee,” he said in a reference to the Black Lives Matter movement.
García also thanked Bovo and Miami-Dade GOP Chairman Rene García, saying of Bovo specifically: “He said to thank us for being here and he supports us 100 percent.”
Another organizer, Chris Barcenas, said that he “did not have an opportunity” to invite Rubio.
“We respect what he’s done so far,” said Barcenas, who said he left the Proud Boys in April to focus on his role as a member of the executive committee of Miami-Dade’s GOP. “He’s been a strong supporter of condemning political violence.”
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