Federal investigators are looking into the assault of a conservative journalist after she was shoved to the ground by a family during an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis over the weekend.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon confirmed Tuesday that both the Department of Justice and FBI have opened investigations into the incident. The attack involved the Ostroushko family, who clashed with Turning Point USA reporter Savanah Hernandez outside the Whipple Federal Building, an ICE field office and detention facility in Minneapolis.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office arrested three people in connection with the assault: Chris Ostroushko, his daughter Paige, and Paige’s boyfriend Lorenzo Garcia, 20. Chris and Garcia were charged with obstruction with force. Paige was charged with disorderly conduct. Chris’s wife, Deyanna, was seen on video confronting Hernandez but was not arrested.
Hernandez recorded multiple angles of the attack. In one video, Chris Ostroushko is shown pushing her to the ground hard enough that he had to be physically restrained by five men. In another, Chris can be heard telling his daughter beforehand to “Blow the whistle right in her f*cking ear.” Paige then blew a whistle in Hernandez’s face before physically attacking her.
Hernandez said the next morning she woke up with a headache and a stiff neck from the force of the shove.
Records show Chris Ostroushko was previously convicted of defrauding the state of Minnesota after illegally collecting nearly $7,000 in unemployment benefits in the early 2000s.
Speaking with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Monday, Hernandez said she believes the attack was deliberate once protesters identified her employer. “Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, this is now the third time that people have come up to me, figured out I work for TPUSA, and have made a point to confront me, to threaten me, to harass me, and now brutally assault me,” she said.
“I’m scared to report, Laura,” Hernandez told Ingraham. “I can’t even interview people properly on the street because I get brutally assaulted and pushed to the ground by a 250-pound man for simply going and reporting on anti-ICE activities.”
Border Czar Tom Homan, also appearing on the show, called for continued prosecution of attackers. “We cannot give up on this. We have to keep prosecuting these people,” Homan said. “We cannot accept this as a norm in the United States of America.”
Hernandez posted on X after the incident: “For far too long, the violent left has been allowed to get away with repeated attacks on journalists. I’m looking forward to justice being served after what happened yesterday.”
