LA MAGA Bear Hug Guy: Hero Or Villain?

A picture is worth a thousand words — and sometimes some of them contradictory.

These shocking images captured by Raquel Natalicchio on Wednesday show the moment a lone Black woman was attacked by a group of Trump supporters as she walked home in Downtown LA.

One of the most jarring images shows the woman — later identified as Berlinda Nibo — with her arms pinned by her side by a hulking man a foot taller and easily twice her weight, as she is maced and punched in the face:

But according to Nibo herself, the man bear-hugging her was actually trying to save her… or so she believed.

“He was whispering in my ear going ‘You’re OK, I got you, I’ve got you, don’t do anything. These people are literally trying to kill you’,” she recalled to CBS LA.

“If not for him stepping in at that moment, these people would have literally tried to kill me.”

In a tweet, LAPD even said it was investigating the attack, but not the man pictured, as it had determined he was “a good Samaritan.”

“The individual seen in the images with his arms wrapped around her—per the victim’s statement—was determined to be a Good Samaritan that helped her get away from the hostile crowd, by carrying her to safety,” it wrote.

However, according to the photographer who obviously witnessed it, the man was indeed the villain her pictures made him out to be.

She said the incident kicked off when Nibo, just two blocks from her home, walked past a “Stop the Steal” MAGA rally.

“As she walked through the crowd of unmasked trump supporters, they began to yell, asking her if she had voted for Trump. She said no, flipped them off and kept walking and talking on the phone.”

Natalicchio said that’s when a group of around 20 circled her and began screaming in her face and pushing her between each other. One woman, she said, reached over and tore off her wig while calling her a “n***** b****”

“Men holding flag poles began beating her alongside others who were punching her. At one point a trump supporter grabbed her from behind, restricting her ability to defend herself, as she continued to get maced right in the eyes.”

She added: “The police line was right behind me in this photo. Not one officer stepped in. It took two bystanders and myself dragging her out and running over to the police line for safety. No arrests were made.”

Even after Nibo gave her interview to CBS, Natalicchio stood by her story, identifying the bear-hugger as Roy Ball.

“Several account witnesses have stated and have photo and video footage of the woman being maced in the eyes while being held by Ball. It is on video that two bystanders jumped into the crowd to pull her out and escorted her to the police line,” she wrote.

“She later stated that she was unable to see who helped her by leading her out of the crowd,” she said, claiming Nibo was currently trying to retract her original statement about Ball “saving her” from CBS. (TooFab has reached out to CBS for comment)

Indeed, other videos of Ball posted on Twitter from earlier in the day do not paint so rosy a picture: in one he joins other Trump supporters surrounding and intimidating another woman, even appearing to dare the “b****” to hit him in the face:

“I don’t understand what’s going on in the world,” Nibo told CBS “I’m saddened by it. I’m heartbroken by it. It’s a shame that I can’t walk down my street anymore.”

A GoFundMe set up to help Nibo has sinced raised more than $53k.