B.C. man says he was assaulted while counter-protesting anti-vaccine rally

A B.C. man who has been counter-protesting anti-vaccine rallies every Saturday for months says things took a violent turn last week when he was shoved into traffic, had his head slammed into the pavement, and was repeatedly struck in the face.

A B.C. man who has been counter-protesting anti-vaccine rallies every Saturday for months says things took a violent turn last week when he was shoved into traffic, had his head slammed into the pavement, and was repeatedly struck in the face.

Korry Zepik says a small group has been gathering at a busy corner in Vernon for at least 14 weeks, waving Canadian flags and holding signs that oppose vaccines, promote COVID-19 conspiracy theories and call for the arrest of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

And each week, Zepik has been there too, with his own signs saying things like "COVID is not a plot" and "Masks work."

While he says he has always been met with a degree of animosity, what happened on Oct. 1 was a frightening escalation that left Zepik dazed and bloody, prompting a police investigation.

"This weekend I got there and almost immediately everybody was at me, they were upset," he tells CTV News, adding he thinks his introduction of an air horn that he would "toot" whenever someone expressed support for him seems to have angered some of the crowd.

"They tried to snatch my air horn away from me, snatch my sign away from me, pull it out of my hands. Over the 14 weeks, people have tried to hip check me into traffic a little bit and stuff like that, but nothing this serious."

Next, Zepik says he was shoved several times and decided to move onto a small, nearby traffic island to get away from the angry group. He says he was followed there by two men who then proceeded to tell him that they had defaced the signs he left behind with spray paint.