Jose “Chille” DeCastro’s coverage of the Martin Luther King Jr. march in Los Angeles ended prematurely Monday night as the Self-proclaimed “full time Civil Rights activist” filmed himself getting into an aggressive altercation with a protester and ultimately ended up running away from a group of teenage girls.
DeCastro was filming while dressed in a t-shirt with “Press” written on the front of it in block letters while filming in the Leimert Park area of south Los Angeles. He claimed that the shirt identified him as a friend to the police, but as the night progressed, proved to be a hinderance to the YouTuber as he encountered members of the public.
The first problems began early in the video as DeCastro was walking in what he described as a “no man’s land” between one line of police and another line of police near the gate to Leimert Park.
DeCastro pointed his camera into the park to get footage of a group of women helping an injured African American man to his feet. Two of the women spotted DeCastro filming and aggressively approached him from the other side of the gate, telling him to stop filming their friend.
The YouTuber, who calls himself an alpha male, meekly complied with the women, turning his camera away from the scene in the park and dropping his coverage of the park. He instead, decided to move down the street and away from the confines of the “no man’s land.”
Proclaiming what he was doing was “real journalism,” DeCastro stopped at one point to “tie up” his pants and his sweater in order to be better equipped to run should the police or someone else force him to run.
Soon after, he came across a group of people fighting at an ATM. After filming for a few seconds, DeCastro let out a loud whistle, scaring the crowd. The 20-30 people stopped what they were doing and dispersed from the scene without incident.
A few minutes later, DeCastro again walked towards police lines where a large African American man was standing holding a camera and other belongings. He put the belongings on the ground and appeared to walk away from the scene.
DeCastro approached the belongings and began to film. He was then startled by the man, who ran back to his belongings and began to scream racial slurs at DeCastro. At one point, DeCastro began laughing and told the man that he could not be a “cracker” as he was not cracking a whip.
Another man came over and pushed the man away from DeCastro, which caused the diminutive YouTuber to let out a nervous laugh before quickly exiting the immediate area to seek shelter near the police lines.
As he approached the police lines, the YouTuber began to hurl abuse at an African American heavy set police officer. He said that the man needed to get in shape and that he was not one of the “best and brightest” that the police force could offer.
He lingered on the idea of “best” and brightest and approached at least one more fit looking African American officer, thanking the man for his service and his ability to stay in shape.
Soon after, the police in the area gathered for a debriefing. With around fifty to one hundred officers gathered, a protester got into an altercation with another African American officer. That officer would eventually ask DeCastro to back up.
DeCastro again aggressively targeted the man, yelling that it was his right to film and demanding the man’s name and badge number. When the man ignored his taunts, DeCastro exited the area as the police gathering broke up.
Walking away, he said he spotted another gathering of people further away from the now departing police. When he arrived, he began filming the gathering of people. A few gave him blank stares as he approached the scene with one girl in front of him walking towards him, spotting his camera, then quickly vanishing into the crowd.
At one point he turned to see another woman behind him and began to explain that he wasn’t looking at the woman but instead checking his back when he was interrupted by a large African American who angerly asked him to stop filming.
The man aggressively charged DeCastro, who began to explain that he was press and he had every right to film. As he backed up, a second man intervened and told DeCastro to stop filming as the first man told him to back away.
DeCastro, now fearful and defensive, continued to back away from the men and all the way back to where the police had been. Approaching the divider between the sidewalk and street, DeCastro refused to move any further.
He put his camera down and DeCastro took a boxing stance towards the men, telling them that he would defend himself before the second man deescalated the situation and backed away.
Moving further down the street, DeCastro began to talk to an African American man who identified himself as a veteran. As he was talking to the man, a group of African American teenage girls began to surround and taunt DeCastro, telling him that he should stop filming.
Before DeCastro could interact with the teens, the veteran stopped the girls and assured them that he was crazy and that DeCastro was under his protection, which resulted in the girls backing away from DeCastro.
DeCastro thanked the veteran before hurrying back to his car. On his way to the car he stated:
“You know, I’ve been talking to some people about carrying mace, and I I haven’t carried mace because I I know that I can fight people if someone’s going to fight me. Do I want to fight them? Do I want to get in a fist fight?
I don’t. I don’t want to fight anybody. I want to do my job, which is being a journalist. So, being a constitutional scholar, teaching people the law, that’s my job. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to back all the way up to the edge of the street and then I’m going to be ran off. I don’t get ran off by cops. I’m not going to get ran off by thugs.
That’s not going to happen. And if I get jumped and I get beat up, then I get jumped. But I had a legitimate concern for my safety right there. That was very scary.
That was very scary. If you guys don’t I mean I don’t know if you guys if the camera actually captured how terrifying that was, but that was very scary. I was being surrounded. It was terrifying.
That was very scary. I’m glad I kept the camera rolling. That was absolutely terrifying. I still have like the uh I still got that taste in my mouth when you get that adrenaline going and uh it was it that was very scary.
I won’t feel safe till I’m in my car which is only a few feet away here. So that was absolutely terrifying.”
DeCastro appeared spooked as he started driving, with hands visibly shaking. He told his audience:
“So, this was an interesting live. This was really interesting. I’m actually going to go I’m I’m going to go grapple right now is what I’m going to do. I’m going to head over to my buddy’s house, get into some shorts, and I’m going to do a little wrestling right now is what I’m going to do. It’s going to make me feel a lot better if I get in and just do a little jiu-jitsu right now for the next 30 minutes. That’ll help me cuz there’s I got I feel the power in my arms and legs.
I feel I feel like this. I feel the adrenaline in my body and I needed to get it out. So, I’m going to go to my buddy’s place right now. Go back and do a little grappling right now so I can I got to stay in shape. I got to stay in fighting shape especially because as you guys know, we got this technology coming out in the next month here. Should be beta testing now. Should be beta I should have got a phone call today from the technologist. We should be beta testing now.
And um yeah, that’s what I’m going to do. That’s what I’m going to do. But I couldn’t have backed up any further. And I and I don’t I’m not going to be pushed around by by a man. If you’re a man and I’m a man, you don’t get to tell me what to do. And if you’re going to go to violence and I’m not going to get jumped, I’ll put the phone down. If that’s what if that if you’re going to jump me and you say you’re going to jump me, okay? And if if you think you can jump me by yourself, good luck. Good luck.
Because this is real life. And I will throw you on your [ __ ] head straight up. You think it’ll last a long time, it won’t. It’ll last 15 seconds. Maybe 30 seconds. If you know how to wrestle, if you know jiu-jitsu, then maybe it’ll last a little longer. But you better be as good as I am. I’m not going to be bullied. I’m not going to be bullied. Not going to be pushed around.
And I’m not going to be bullied. When the mob was going to jump me, I had to get out of there. You know, you guys saw it, you know. And when that that man tried to deescalate, I I learned as a kid that if if one man tells you to stop and he’s trying to get to deescalate, then let the man deescalate it. So you guys saw me do that on Hollywood Boulevard. People like, “Oh, Chile, back down as soon as someone said something to him.” No, I learned I was I was educated like this as a kid. If someone breaks up the fight, let the guy break it up. Let the guy end the the drama in the fighting. So, I was just doing as I was taught and yeah, let people are going to break it up and your energyy’s bad. You got to stop. You got to stop.
Yeah. There was a guy that hit me up today, but um I was going to go down here with a comedian, but he didn’t get back to me. So, yeah.
I’m out of the hood.
My nerves did not rattle at all. I definitely had my senses on. I definitely had my I definitely had my um I definitely had my my my my brain on. I I definitely kept my my brain intact, but I I I’m still steady as a rock. See that? Not one bit of shake. My phone’s not shaking. My hand’s not shaking. Nothing. It’s It’s because I’m in shape and I’ve been fighting. I’ve been training. So, I know I know what I can do. If If one man decides to fight me, I know you’re not going to beat me up.”
Finally adding:
“Listen, people talk [ __ ] about Jake Paul. Jake Paul’s tough. He’s tough, dude. You can say what you want about him. He has the best trainers in the world and he’s been training for about five years now, day in and day out. Jake Paul in a in a fist fight, in a full-on in an MMA fight, I don’t know if Jake Paul could take me. In a boxing match, Jake Paul could kill me.
He’s been training for five years with the best coaches in the world. He would knock the [ __ ] out of me. I would have I think I would have zero chance if I fought Jake Paul in a boxing match. Now, if he fought me in an MMA fight, I think Jake’s going to have some real problems. I think because he’s in his mid20s and in great shape, by minute six or by minute seven, he he if he knows jiu-jitsu, he’d probably get me, you know?
I mean, I’m 50. You know what I’m saying? So, like, I couldn’t fight Jake Paul for more than a few minutes before he before he took me. He’s just in too good a shape and he’s in his 20s, you know what I mean? So he he would um I don’t think he look like a [ __ ] against Anthony Joshua. I think he just was he was fighting a real boxer who’d been boxing his whole life. Jake Paul’s been training for 5 years with some of the best trainers in the world. So you know.”
This is a breaking news story.
