But that's precisely your problem, here. It wasn't. Your premise is wrong.
I don't have a premise! I was only pointing out possible scenarios where a person like this guy could be more or less innocent or guilty (naivety, seeking out troublesome crowds, and or staging trouble where there was none). Generally speaking, going into a crowd of union thugs (with kids and an opposing political message) is unwise. If no trouble brews up, it wouldn't be too hard to either a)intentionally start something, or b) get people to believe that the thugs started something. That's a red flag here and why if staged, the story *would appear credible*. IOW union thugs acting like thugs is believable, so staging something like this would seem realistic. Unlike say, going into a crowd of monks and claiming they got angry and violent toward a small child.
There will be those who will refuse to ever accept that conservatives can and will use deception to push their ideas, and some will never accept that union thugs might not always be guilty of thuggery. I prefer to steer clear of emotionally charged crowds of any stripe, because of these sort of concerns.