BRAWL: Police clash with Miami Proud Boys at DeSantis’ speech to Florida GOP

BRAWL: Police clash with Miami Proud Boys at DeSantis' speech to Florida GOP

Police just served a restraining order to a member of the Miami Republican Executive Committee, who is in the Proud Boys violent extremist group, over a battery incident against a woman at the political party’s biggest annual event with the GOP’s top rising star in attendance. (video embedded below)

Florida Republicans gathered at the Fontainebleau Resort on Friday night, April 22nd, 2022, in the luxurious Miami Beach hotel as the setting for one of the most important annual fundraising nights for the Republican Party of Miami-Dade, the Lincoln Day dinner.

This year’s party featured big-name GOP speakers like U.S. Senator Marco Rubio from nearby West Miami and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

After dinner, things quickly went south when hotel security was called to escort a pair of guests. Then, while the event was ongoing at approximately 9:15 pm, a Republican Executive Committee member pushed a woman near the front door of the palm-tree-lined main entrance to the Fontainebleau resort.

A day later, Miami Beach Police Officer Darias filed a police report on the suspected simple battery against Ms. Marrissa Brooke Elizabeth Gonzalez, which she alleged was perpetrated by Nowell Salgueiro, a member of the Miami GOP and the Proud Boys violent extremist organization.

Gonzalez claimed the shoulder bump aimed at her as retribution for her friendship with Alixandra Caballero, a member of the Moms for Liberty group who, along with her husband, was escorted out of the Lincoln Day dinner by Fontainbleu security but returned the following afternoon to corroborate their friend’s allegations. The Moms for Liberty group “severed” Cabellero “and associates” in the wake of the incident.

According to Officer Darias’ report, the hotel’s security footage of the incident is being preserved. Upon request, the department did not release a copy, if they have one, nor did they release Ofc. Darias’ body camera footage.

The list of participants in this violent outburst reveals to a growing extent how the Republican Party of Miami-Dade’s Executive Committee, the organization’s decision-making body, has been infiltrated by far-right extremists. Some are criminally charged as January 6th rioters and members of groups like the Proud Boys, a right-wing violent extremist hate group that rebranded itself locally after Trump’s loss in 2020.

Organizations like Moms for Liberty work closely with the Miami GOP. They are at the forefront of the state GOP’s school-oriented political strategies and work closely with the Proud Boys via its rebranded front named Floridians First.

The Moms for Liberty group is helping rewrite Florida’s educational guidelines around Republican political orthodoxy, such as the bumper sticker slogan CRT, which is a hot-button political description of graduate education courses about race.

At a recent meeting of Miami-Dade Republicans, a video shot by one of the authors of this piece shows Salgueiro, Miami GOP executive committee member Chris Barcenas (a realtor), and an unidentified third male being pulled outside by officers from the City of West Miami Police getting served what appears to be some sort of court documents.

Occupy Democrats recorded Salgueiro getting served on the scene as he hid his face with the paperwork in the ballroom’s parking lot.

The Proud Boys member later posted a photo of journalist Thomas Kennedy in the parking lot to a public Telegram channel, confirming the incident. He knows he was recorded spewing hateful epithets and anti-gay slurs.

Salgueiro later deleted his Telegram account.

The story continues below the video:

Salgueiro’s associate Barcenas attended the January 6th Save America rally and photographed himself on the grounds of the Capitol during the insurrection. He is a member of “Floridians First,” the new brand for the local Proud Boys group and the Miami Against Fash account has documented the real estate agent’s activities thoroughly.

We have not been able to confirm what documents he was served precisely. Public records requests revealed that West Miami PD Major Pedro “Pete” Delgado did write an email to a New York Times journalist saying an officer was dispatched to the Calle Ocho business to serve a “restraining order.” Logs from the West Miami PD officer Espinosa who served Salgueiro, call it an “injunction.”

A West Miami Police Major explains why they detained Nowell Salgueiro to serve an order against him.

We also identified Salgueiro in a photo from August 18th, 2021, that includes an individual who assaulted WLRN Danny Rivero outside of a Miami-Dade Public School Board Meeting that grew contentious due to a vote regarding masking children in schools.

Salgueiro is 36 years old and lives in Miami’s western suburbs.

From September 2020 through February 2021, he served as the manager of a Florida limited company named Deplorable Troll USA LLC.

Last year, when a member of the Proud Boys struck WLRN journalist Danny Rivero while he was covering a school board meeting, he shared a photo including Nowell as a material witness (left side).

The Miami PD police report we obtained in a public records request doesn’t identify Rivero by name.  He confirmed by phone to Occupy Democrats that he filed at the station the following day.

In terse prose, it reads that the suspect grabbed him by the arm and pushed him with his stomach saying, “I will fuck you up.” The journalist filed the report because he identified his assailant as one of the Proud Boys and is “in fear of future encounters.”

“I also filed a complaint with the CIP and talked about her behavior to them about the officer to the CIP,” Rivero told us in between recording news for Miami’s NPR station. “The Miami officer I was trying to give the report to initially refused to take down the report at the station the following day. When she took the initial report, she wouldn’t take down the name Proud Boys even though it was the only reason I went there.”

Both Chris Barcenas and Nowell Salgueiro are involved with a Proud Boys adjacent group called “Floridians First,” which has a website detailing plans and resources to take over leadership positions within the Republican Party. It is essentially a front group for members of the Proud Boys to mainstream their express plan to take over the local Republican Party apparatus in South Florida along with a lawyer linked to the founder of the right-wing hate group.

This story was co-authored with Thomas Kennedy.

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Grant Stern

Editor at Large

is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also a mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition, and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here: