Josh Cobin seems a good enough guy. A little pudgy, maybe, with his hair thinning on top and a beard borrowed from a Civil War officer—one who forgot to get a trim before Mathew Brady showed up to take the battalion photograph. At 29, Josh is probably a little old for the sloppy look he affects. A little old for his baggy shorts and ball cap. But he’s got a steady job at GoDaddy, the Internet registration firm, down in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they’re too cutting edge—too Age of the Internet—to care about the old corporate uniform of jacket and tie. He’s kind to dogs, concerned with making the world a better place, all that sort of thing. Plus, he told a television interviewer, he’s got a great sense of humor.

Anyway, one hot August day, he saw in the discussion feeds he follows online that plans were being made to fight the fascism of Donald Trump by rallying against the president during a scheduled trip to Arizona. And though he would later insist that he is not a member of antifa, the loose-knit organization behind the rally, Josh decided to join the self-proclaimed anti-fascist forces. So he put a few supplies, water bottles and whatnot, in a backpack, hid his face behind a gas mask, and marched off in his baggy shorts to protest the president’s August 22 speech at the Phoenix Convention Center—where, caught up in all the excitement, he got second-degree burns on his hand trying to hurl a tear-gas canister back at the police. And when he attempted to kick another as it spun along the pavement, he was hit with yet a third shot from the police: a ball of pepper spray that doubled him over and knocked him to the ground, clutching his privates in agony.