Many Americans understand that the riots aren’t righteous protests but are, instead, leftist activism aimed at destabilizing America and (the activists hope) destroying Trump’s chance at reelection. Still, people found shocking a video showing police in Buffalo pushing an old man to the ground where he lay with blood pouring from his ear. Don’t believe everything you see, though. The old man was a leftist activist looking for trouble and may have staged the whole thing.

If one views the video in a vacuum, it’s awful. A frail-looking old man standing alone against the Buffalo police is brutally pushed to the ground and left to lie there, bleeding:

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT Video shows two police officers in Buffalo, New York, shoving a 75-year-old man to the ground. The sound of a crack is heard and blood trickles from the man’s head https://t.co/JOGKvPOjoD pic.twitter.com/TBqs4gelmi

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 5, 2020

Almost immediately after the video appeared, the police officers who pushed the man were charged with assault and suspended from the force. This tweet illustrates how effective the man’s fall was in advancing the anti-police narrative:

I’m not sure any single video since the murder of George Floyd gives us a more insightful glimpse into the minds of American police than this one.

Buffalo Police & friends are CHEERING for the 2 officers who brutally assaulted & then ignored the head injury of a 75 year old man. pic.twitter.com/dtXr8xqlx3

— Shaun King (@shaunking) June 6, 2020

When leftists control the narrative, though, assume that what you’re seeing is a lie. It took a little while for the truth to emerge, but we now know that Martin Gugino is a hard-left activist. In his Twitter feed, he says “F*** the police,” longs for Chicago, circa 1968, where the leftists violently rioted, supports Palestinian activism, and retweets theories that “undercover cops” are responsible for Minneapolis’s violent riots. Buffalo’s mayor, Byron Brown, said Gugino was an “agitator” whom the police had repeatedly asked to leave the area for trying to incite the crowd.

Footage has emerged showing Gugino hanging around with activists and boasting that he’s looking “for fun.” The shocked young man to whom he confided this said, “I think he’s looking to get punched in the face. That’s what it is.”

That young man was correct.

People who have been carefully examining footage of Gugino’s interactions with the police, as well as his fall, have noticed that there was nothing innocent about what he was doing. According to the Conservative Treehouse, Gugino was using a phone as a capture scanner, which would allow him to capture information from the police officers’ communication belts.

Others have pointed out the peculiarly graceful and staged way in which Gugino fell:

Who crosses their feet and slowly lays their phone on the ground like this if it’s not a set up? pic.twitter.com/KPQE1b61Hr

— Irrehs Tfarchsa рџ‡єрџ‡ё (@Tfarchsa_Sm) June 6, 2020

Some also contend that the blood is fake too:

Tubes running out from under his mask used to release the fake blood. Totally staged. pic.twitter.com/UmY6Gh6rGz

— рџ‡єрџ‡ёNot Your Father's Freedomрџ‡єрџ‡ё (@NYFFREEDOM) June 6, 2020

Certainly, the waterfall of blood from his ear immediately upon falling is inconsistent with the type of blow he allegedly sustained as well as with how blood actually trickles out of a person’s ear by running down the skin. The double masks Gugino was wearing were also peculiar and the hard blow he allegedly sustained should have impaired his functioning, which did not seem to have happened:

You can also see him talking on a cell phone and reports are he was joking with emt. pic.twitter.com/KMdQUX1hK7

— рџ‡єрџ‡ёNot Your Father's Freedomрџ‡єрџ‡ё (@NYFFREEDOM) June 7, 2020

The Buffalo police force certainly believes that the two arrested officers were the victims of a set-up. Fifty-seven of them have resigned from the emergency response team.

Leftist activism always has an element of theater. That can be amusing when climate change nutcases dress as broccoli. It’s less funny when a vicious old man frames the police to drive a hard left narrative aimed at bringing our country to anarchy and vigilantism.