A conservative journalist attacked at a left-wing protest in Minneapolis has released new footage appearing to show her alleged assailants planning the violence in advance.
On Saturday, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) Frontlines reporter Savanah Hernandez posted multiple videos and photos showing a violent confrontation as she was swarmed and physically attacked by a mob protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minnesota. Hernandez identified a father and daughter in the attack where she was punched, shoved, and thrown to the ground repeatedly by the angry mob. The violent assault has drawn the attention of the Department of Justice.
(Screenshots via Savanah Hernandez/X)The father, Chris Ostroushko, can be heard in the new video released Monday seemingly planning the incident in advance and giving directions to his daughter Paige, according to Hernandez.
“The more footage that comes out, the worse it gets for the Ostroushko family,” Hernandez wrote as she shared the clip. “Here’s Chris instructing his OWN daughter to come up to me and, ‘Blow the whistle right in her fucking ear.’”
WATCH:
The more footage that comes out, the worse it gets for the Ostroushko family
Here’s Chris instructing his OWN daughter to come up to me and, “Blow the whistle right in her fucking ear”
They pre-planned & committed the attack…all on camera… pic.twitter.com/xLlVim8bxJ
— Savanah Hernandez (@Savsays) April 14, 2026
Should law enforcement investigate the planning of violence against a journalist at a protest?
Ostroushko served probation after a 2005 conviction for unemployment fraud.
At the start of the new video, Ostroushko is seen telling his daughter, a soccer player at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, to get the whistle from the car and to blow the whistle in Hernandez’s ear prior to Hernandez being attacked. Hernandez posted Sunday that the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office was charging Ostroushko, his wife DeYanna and his daughter in connection with her apparent assault, reporting in a follow-up post she was suffering from a headache and stiff neck after the incident.
Another social media post by Townhall.com columnist Dustin Grage shows Chris Ostroushko posing with former CNN host Don Lemon and William Scott Kelly, both of whom who were indicted for their role in the storming of Cities Church in January that Lemon livestreamed.
The protest footage also shows Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies being berated by the mob after they intervened in the situation.
Blowing a whistle into a person’s ear can cause temporary or permanent hearing loss by damaging the cochlea, which are hairs inside the inner ear, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon indicated in a Saturday post on X that the federal government was probing the incident.
Conservative journalists have been repeatedly assaulted while covering anti-ICE riots. In one incident, a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation was assaulted by anti-ICE rioters near a makeshift roadblock in February, weeks after independent journalists Cam Higby and Nick Sortor survived a January attack by a mob of rioters opposed to ICE operations.
Anti-ICE rioters also reportedly directed violence against counter protesters supporting the federal immigration enforcement operations. Video taken by DCNF reporter Jorge Ventura shows anti-ICE rioters attacking a person who attended an event sponsored by independent journalist Jake Lang to protest welfare fraud reportedly perpetrated by Somali migrants.
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