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This is radicalization at its finest.
Just months before he was arrested for violently shoving a Turning Point USA reporter at an anti-ICE protest, Minnesota dad Chris Ostroushko spent his days like any stereotypical white, middle-aged American man: working in construction and watching football from his couch.
Ostroushko had never thought to participate in any protests in his 50-something years – until out-of-control protesters and ICE agents clashed during a deadly demonstration in North Minneapolis on Jan. 14.
There, he gave an enraged man-on-the-street interview that catapulted him into becoming the face of a new wave of radical protestors – and ultimately led to his arrest for attacking a conservative journalist.
“This is nuts … what the f–k is going on? Dude, this is insane,” Ostroushko ranted at the January protest, according to video of his interview with Status Coup.
We’re all human beings here. I don’t give a s–t who you are, where you came from, what color you are – it doesn’t f–king matter. This is wrong,” he bellowed, the footage shows.
When asked if he’d ever been to a demonstration before, Ostroushko replied, “Never, never. I’ve never protested in my life.
“I sit in my cushy house and look at s–t and get mad … they’re just trying to f–king scare people … they tell you it’s immigrants, only immigrants, it’s f–king anybody!” he wailed.
The clip drew hundreds of thousands of views and comments from supporters, and turned Ostroushko into the poster child for unlikely activists.
“You’d never think my dad – a random suburban guy in construction – would go viral,” Ostroushko’s 20-year-old daughter, Paige, told the Star Tribune in the wake of her father’s newfound stardom.
“He’s just, like, a middle-aged man that just sits at home and watches football. But now that he’s out there, everyone else in the suburbs is like, ‘Wow, this person is out there. I need to get out there,’” she said.
“I can sit around like everybody else in my cul de sac and watch TV and not go anywhere,” Ostroushko added in an interview with the outlet, and explained that he was first drawn to the anti-ICE movement by his wife, who encouraged him to attend a memorial for slain activist Renee Good with her.
“But the more I saw this, the more I realized that this is really a very important issue, and more people should be out, because what they’re doing is not right,” he said.
Supporters on social media, where the baldie proudly goes by “Minnesota angry man,” called him “America’s dad” – and even demanded he run for president.
“They want to buy me a beer, buy me a gun. They call me the voice of this generation,” Ostroushko told the Star Tribune in February.
Just a few months into his fame, however, Ostroushko’s true, radical colors were revealed when he unleashed a violent, caught-on-camera attack on Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez.
Horrifying video from the April 11 anti-ICE rally outside the Whipple building shows the hulking Ostroushko suddenly shoving Hernandez with both hands to the ground, while yelling, “Don’t f–king touch my daughter!”
The enraged dad’s assault came after a female protester was seen punching Hernandez in the face, knocking her clean off her feet and into a fence behind her, and before another woman tackled her to the pavement once again, according to the footage.
Ostroushko, along with his daughter Paige, were arrested in connection with the attack, which left Hernandez with a concussion, sprained knee, neck pain and emotional damage, the journo later told The Post.
Criminal cases against the father-daughter duo “are currently under review for potential charging,” the Hennepin County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday.
Since the incident, Ostroushko whined that his family has been the subject of “nonstop” backlash – a far cry from the gushing praise he was receiving for his protest efforts just months earlier.
“It’s a little overwhelming and makes me second-guess even living in this country, to be honest with you, with all that’s going on,” he told One America News Network this week.
Ostroushko could not be reached for comment.
English (US)