A Minnesota father caught on camera pushing conservative reporter Savanah Hernandez to the ground during a chaotic anti-ICE protest says he was defending his wife and daughter and insists his family is “absolutely not violent.”
“We’re definitely not violent people. In fact, we tend to shy away from it,” Chris Ostroushko told podcast host Brian Shapiro in his first interview since the viral incident.
“You’ll even notice that day that I wasn’t at the front at all during this whole event. I just stayed at the back and kind of watched what was going on,” he added.
Ostroushko, his wife DeYanna and daughter Paige were seen on camera in an altercation with TPUSA reporter Savanah Hernandez outside the Whipple Building in Minnesota on April 11.
Hernandez was covering the protest for “f–ICE day” when she said protesters surrounded her after realizing she was affiliated with Turning Point USA, the conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk.
In an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Hernandez strongly disputed the family’s account and said the Ostroushkos were the aggressors.
“I would just say if I hit them first, it would be on camera,” Hernandez said. “There are several ways Paige walks up to me while I’m standing alone. And also her mother is the first person who came up to me to bother me.”
Hernandez said DeYanna Ostroushko “pressed her body against me and pushed me several times,” while “her husband then pushed me from behind and started yelling in my ear.”
She said this happened before “Chris Ostroushko then instructed his daughter on camera to ‘blow the whistle in my ear.’”
“At no point did I walk up to these people,” Hernandez said. “All three of them walked towards me. The father and mother first pushed me and then ordered their daughter to attack me.”
Hernandez also rejected the claim that she hit Paige first. She said that after Paige moved inches from her ear and blew a whistle, she just raised her hand to create space and tried to walk away, but she says the Ostroushkos “refused to leave me alone.”
“Every time they attacked me was while I was trying to leave,” she added.
However, DeYanna Ostroushko told Shapiro that Hernandez instigated the collision and that the family was defending themselves.
“I wasn’t violent at all. I was trying to protect my daughter while deescalating the situation,” DeYanna said. “When I was attacked, my husband said, ‘That’s enough, don’t interfere with my family.’”
DeYanna claimed that Hernandez backhanded Paige before Chris pushed her.
“So after that happened, she started leaving that area… Paige moved with her, and she had hit Paige again, so that was a second attack, and then Paige pushed her to defend herself, and then I yelled at Paige and I said, ‘Paige, come back.’
“And she said, ‘Mom, she hit me.’ And then I said, ‘Don’t touch my daughter,’ and then she grabbed me by the throat,” DeYanna said.
Trisha Pohland, one of the family’s attorneys, supported that version on the podcast.
“Based on what I saw, she went to hit Paige in the face when Paige was whistling… which she has every right to do and Savanah was the one who hit her,” Pohland said.
Hernandez said she later sought medical treatment.
“Yes, I went and sought medical attention and they told me I had a concussion and multiple sprains,” she told Fox News Digital.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and Vice President JD Vance also confirmed that the FBI has opened an investigation into the attack on Hernandez.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News Digital that the case remains under investigation and that on Monday it recommended charges against Paige Marie Ostroushko, Lorenzo Amadeo Garcia and Christopher Ostroushko in connection with the assault of a journalist.
The Hennepin County Prosecutor’s Office told Fox News Digital that it had received three filed cases on Monday and that they are “currently being reviewed for possible charges.”
James Cook, one of the Ostroushkos’ attorneys, told Fox News Digital that no charges had yet been filed against Chris and that he would not plead guilty.
Hernandez said she had not yet heard directly from county prosecutors, but said the sheriff’s office told her it “didn’t feel like they had enough evidence to charge Deanna and [was] not recommend any charges against her.”
The Ostroushko family says they have been numb since the incident went viral and have lost their jobs despite not being arrested at the time of Shapiro’s interview.
“We’re getting death threats, they’re threatening to rape my wife, they’re threatening to rape Paige,” Chris said. “They are threatening to come to our house and burn our house down…”
He added that he wished no ill will toward Hernandez.
“You could say, ‘This was bad.’ Some people might say, “This isn’t bad.” Either way, it doesn’t give people the right to destroy people’s lives. It never even occurred to me to try to destroy her life,” he said.
