The Anti-Trump protester seen kicking a gas canister at officers has been arrested and is currently facing four criminal charges as of Thursday. The video shows a man kicking a canister in the direction of a police officer barricade. He is soon shot in the groin by police with a nonlethal round (pepper ball), and drops to the ground.
Joshua Stuart Cobin, 29, from Scottsdale, Arizona, has landed himself into a bit of hot water with the law. He is being charged with three felony counts of aggravated assault on police and one misdemeanor count of unlawful assembly. He is currently employed by Go Daddy, as their sales and support representative, according to a report from azfamily.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rSrKr40xVs
Cobin admits to being the man who kicked the canister at Tuesday night’s protest of President Donald Trump. He defends his actions in an interview on Wednesday. However, he doesn’t believe that he attacked any police officer.
“I don’t equate kicking or putting back tear gas canisters as attacking police. I never attacked a police officer,” he said.
The reason why the canister was kicked, according to Cobin, is because he felt that officers were not justified in responding to the protest with gas canisters and pepper balls. However, officers say that their response was triggered by protesters throwing rocks, bottles, and other objects at them
“That was not an unlawful assembly and that I had every right to be there. And that tear gas was in the way of myself and every other peacefully assembled protesters being there,” he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teRqxd5nBzs
Cobin spent Tuesday night in the emergency room. He said that he received treatment for inhaling pepper spray and for second-degree burns on his right hand from picking up a hot can of tear gas.
Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Jonathan Howard announced the suspect’s arrest in an e-mail. “He has posted images and admissions to his crime on social and local media outlets.”
