Updated below.
It happened before last night’s Kentucky Senatorial debate between Rand Paul and Jack Conway. A local news cameraman captures Paul exiting his SUV, but is quickly drawn to a scuffle to his right. Several Paul supporters are taking a woman to the ground, for no clear reason, and heard yelling “get the cops!, get the cops!” A blonde wig somehow figures into the melee.
The woman is Lauren Valle, 23, a MoveOn contract employee. She is brandishing a sign, not a handgun. It reads “Rand Paul: RepubliCorp Employee of the Month.” You can hear her exclaim, “You are kidding me!” Then the goon, who had likely just arrived from watching the entire Cops DVD box set back at the double-wide, moved in.
(YouTube has yanked the original footage. I wonder on what grounds? Maybe Fox objected because it was filmed by a local Fox employee. Here’s the local Fox report in its place, for as long as it lasts.)
(Wow. A second YouTube video has fallen down the memory hole. I’ve added a third.)
The Kentucky Post later reported: “Police say she refused treatment and later filed an assault report.” As of early this morning, the Lexington Police Department said they had not yet identified the man.
Update.
The police department identified the goon this afternoon: “Today, October 26, 2010, detectives identified the suspect, involved in the assault, as Tim Profitt. Mr. Profitt is currently being served with a criminal summons ordering him to appear before a Fayette County District Court Judge.”
Tim Profitt was a Rand Paul volunteer campaign coordinator in Bourbon County in central Kentucky. The campaign says it has disassociated itself with the goon and banned him from future events.
Profitt, not surprisingly, had this to say about the episode. The Associated Press is reporting:
The volunteer with Rand Paul’s Republican U.S. Senate campaign who stepped on the head of a liberal activist and pinned her face to the concrete said Tuesday the scuffle was not as bad as it looked on video and blamed police for not intervening.
“I’m sorry that it came to that, and I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand’s safety.”
“Not as bad as it looked on video.” C’mon, y’all! Who ya gonna believe? Me or yer lyin’ eyes?! Anyhoo, I’m really sorry if y’all cain’t see right. ‘kay? We good, then?
This full-page Rand Paul ad appeared on the back of today’s Lexington Herald-Leader.
We vote in seven days.
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One Comment
I just had to repost this comment by 7tfh at YouTube:
“The irony that tea party members … the party that campaigns on ‘restoring the constitution’ would beat up a woman for exercising her right to peaceful protest, the most fundamentally important aspect of the constitution itself. Way to show your true colors tea party.”