Damigo told KQED he punched the woman because she was a threat; because she was going to attack his friends; because she was a member of Antifa, a leftist confederation of socialists and anarchists -- some of whom have committed acts of violence and arson.

Essentially, Damigo said he punched her because he had to.

“She joined this organization and came with her local gang from Southern California, according to statements that she made on social media, to disrupt the events and to acquire scalps,” he said. “Furthermore, she was swinging around bottles, which is a deadly weapon, a foot-long wine bottle at people.”

That’s not what KQED witnessed at the scene of the attack, however.

What began with Damigo shouting provocative calls into a megaphone quickly turned into an all-out street brawl. Damigo was screaming "hold the line," "guard the flank" and "advance!”

Damigo violently moved through the crowd. Smoke bombs and flash grenades and glass bottles were thrown. Thick tear gas filled the air. Leftist protesters, many of them aging men, were beat up. Police were hit with firecrackers. At one point, Antifa (wearing black hoodies and masks) and the far right (wearing red hats, flag capes and paramilitary armor) fought over who could control a dumpster that was pushed down the street.

A fight broke out over control of a dumpster after right- and left-wing demonstrators clashed in Berkeley on April 15. (John Sepulvado/KQED)

Damigo found himself outside of the roaring street brawl he helped create. Alone for a moment, he stopped in the middle of the street. Then, he ran across the street, right up to the woman, and hit her. After she fell, Damigo turned, smiled and jumped back into the rolling scuffles.

Damigo’s involvement in the "Battle of Berkeley" is an important moment for the white supremacist movement because it attracted supporters from around the country.

"A large amount of the violence that has occurred may be due to the inroads we are making," Damigo told an interviewer after the Berkeley events.

This frenetic, violent, yet charismatic man with extreme racist views helped organize the Charlottesville rally. And he’s helping to mobilize an entire generation of white supremacists.

A graphic promoting the Charlottesville rally included the insignia of Damigo's group Identity Evropa in section "I." of the snake.

From Suburban California Kid to Imprisoned Felon

Nathan Damigo was born in Lewiston, Maine. In a long conversation with KQED, he noted with irony that the community had accepted early groups of resettled refugees.

“I wouldn’t call them refugees,” Damigo said. “It was one of the first places they started doing the Somali immigration relocation thing.”

Eventually, his mother moved the family to San Jose. In the South Bay, Damigo traced the beginning of his “race realist” awakening to feeling out of place in a multiracial city. He said he would feel uncomfortable in situations where he was the only white person.

“You’d go over to a friend’s house, or something like that, and everybody’s speaking a different language,” Damigo said, “and you’re just sitting there awkwardly. There’s no connection there.”

Nathan Damigo traces the beginning of his 'race realist' beliefs to his upbringing in the diverse city of San Jose. (Bert Johnson/KQED)

Damigo went to Liberty Baptist School in San Jose through his senior year. His mother worked as a teacher there. Like so many other California kids of his age, he listened to bands like Metallica and Soundgarden, watched "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," and dreamed of being a pro skater.

Yet, as he aged, those dreams morphed into aspirations of a military career -- his father had served in the Marine Corps. Damigo said his desire to serve became more pronounced after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I pretty much watched live as the second tower was hit,” he said. “That was a pretty big thing to watch.”

Damigo also credited his socially conservative family, who he said raised him to have pride in the country, for influencing his decision to enlist.

He would serve two deployments in Iraq in the infantry. It was on these tours that Damigo’s views on race began to be shaped by the violent conflict he saw on a daily basis -- killings, murders, explosions and misery.

“I saw them in Iraq, which is also a multireligious, multicultural society,” Damigo said. “And I generally saw it growing up. And it was certainly a more extreme form, but it definitely, I think, it did make me think a bit more about race and population dynamics.”

The violence that began to shape Damigo’s thinking on race also killed two of his close friends in combat. According to court documents obtained by El Tecolote and KQED, Damigo began suffering acute symptoms of PTSD as a result of his exposure to the Iraq War.

Damigo blames that trauma for his decision to rob a San Diego cab driver at gunpoint after his return from Iraq.

During a psychological evaluation conducted for the court as part of the criminal case, Damigo said he attacked the cab driver, Changiz Ezzatyar, because he mistook him for an Iraqi. Damigo said the decision came after a night of solitary heavy drinking.

Psychologist Heidi Kraft conducted another evaluation of Damigo after the assault. In her clinical notes, which were included in court documents from his trial, she wrote:

“While there is no evidence that the patient experienced psychiatric dissociation during the robbery, his PTSD symptoms were so disabling, and his use of alcohol to self-medicate was so heavy, it appears that the combination of these factors led to a serious and uncharacteristic breakdown in both insight and judgment the night of his arrest.”

Kraft added that some PTSD patients engage in thrill-seeking behavior.

“Based on this Marine’s history, which is free of any behavior even remotely similar to the night of his arrest, it is likely that he may have become one of those patients,” Kraft concluded.

His family strongly defended Damigo during the court hearing, and his story was featured on the HBO documentary, "Wartorn," as part of a broader series on post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans.

"It was like being dropped in a nightmare," his mother, Charilyn Damigo, told HBO.

Nathan DamigoNathan Damigo

California White Supremacist Says Charlottesville May Boost Recruitment

Californian Who Helped Lead Charlottesville Protests Used Berkeley as a Test Run