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On 15 August 2017, the conservative Gateway Pundit web site reported that a group of protesters outside the Hennepin County jail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, had removed the county's flag and erected one of their own - bearing the insignia of the anti-fascist antifa movement. Two days later, the right-wing CNS News web site further reported that the same protesters had burned the Hennepin County flag which they removed from a flag-pole outside the building. These posts use hyperbolic language and slightly exaggerate events -- for example, the protestors did not storm the building, but rather protested outside it. There was an anti-racist protest in Minneapolis on 14 August 2017, which was organized to show solidarity with the counter-protestors at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesvile, Virginia two days earlier. Protestors did indeed remove a county flag and replace it with an antifa flag. According to the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune, the demonstration involved: the Anti-War Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, New North, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and other groups. Video posted to Twitter by Leah Soule clearly shows some of the protesters erecting the antifa flag outside the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility (which includes the county jail). In a statement, a spokesperson for Hennepin County confirmed the accuracy of these claims, but noted that the incident lasted for less than half an hour: The spokesperson further clarified that it was, indeed, protesters who destroyed the Hennepin County flag. According to the Minneapolis Police Department, no arrests were made at the protest, and there is no ongoing investigation.
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