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After being identified by a number of Kentucky websites, the assailant in last night’s “Curbstomping” attack outside a Rand Paul/Jack Conway debate has come out and apologized. Oh wait, no, actually he blamed cameras for forcing his foot to Lauren Valle’s head.
Tim Profitt, a volunteer with the Republican’s U.S. Senate campaign, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the camera angle made the scuffle Monday night appear worse that it was. He criticized police for not stepping in and says other supporters warned authorities about the activist.
Lauren Valle, a 23-year-old with the group MoveOn.org, was wrestled to the ground by Paul supporters when she tried to confront the tea party favorite with a fake award. Valle said Tuesday she was sore and swollen.
Apparently the camera angle made him stomp on a prone woman. And her 120-pound frame was clearly a danger to all the white male patriots around her.
The Paul campaign has disassociated with Profitt, who was the campaign’s Bourbon County coordinator. But before they did, in today’s Lexington Herald-Leader, the Paul campaign ran a full-page ad touting Profitt’s support:
Profitt’s name appears at the bottom of the ad.
Despite shrugs to the contrary, Lauren Valle was actually diagnosed with a concussion and a sprained shoulder after the incident. And she’s pressing criminal charges. So Profitt’s “apology” will not fly.
Another of the assailants last night apparently wore a “Don’t Tread on Me” button. He didn’t specifically do the treading on the woman, so I guess it’s OK.
UPDATE: The Lexington County Lexington/Fayette County Police Department will serve Profitt with a criminal summons today.
UPDATE II: The dynamic duo: just jellin’ with a felon.
UPDATE III: Lauren Valle has now told her side of the story to several journalists.
I have been at a bunch of events before, the previous debate, and the Rand Paul campaign knows me and they have expressed their distastes for my work before. What happened last night was that about five minutes before Rand Paul’s car arrived they identified me and my partner, Alex, who was with me. They surrounded me. There was five of them. They motioned to each other and got behind me. My partner Alex heard them say ‘We are here to do crowd control we might have to take someone out.’
When Rand Paul’s car arrived a couple of them stepped in front of me so I stepped off the curb to get around them to get back out front. At that point they started grabbing for me and I ran all the way around the car with them in pursuit. The footage is after I’ve run all the way around the car and I’m in front of the car and that is when they took me down. One or two people twisted my arms behind my back and took me down… It was about two-to-three second after that that another person stomped on my head. And I lay there for 20 seconds or so and my partner Alex came and got me up and that’s the point where there is the media clip of me speaking.
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And the guy who threw her to the ground, Mike Pezzano, is a real prize, too:
“The Lexington County Police Department will serve Profitt with a criminal summons today.”
Ah, but can Ms. Valle serve Paul with a summons of his own?
“The Lexington County Police Department…”
Uh, it is actually Lexington/Fayette County Police Department (Lexington and Fayette County merged into a single, urban county government thirty or so years ago (LFUCG I believe is the official acronym)
Having been on the receiving end of a police takedown I can assure you that the police would do the exact same thing, maybe worse.
appreciate, will fix.
The state is given a monopoly on violence. If you’re carrying a badge, you’re allowed (and expected) to do things that would be intolerable for a civilian to do.
That’s a lovely acronym they’ve got themselves there.
How do they pronounce it, exactly? “Ell-fuck-gee?”
You know, despite being 64 I’m 6’5″, 265, with a gym in my garage. I work out and on occasion have sort of, what might be called, an imposing demeanor. I also have relatives in KY. Gee, I wish I’d stopped by that rally just for, oops, “kicks”. Betcha nobody would have thrown me to the ground. Or stomped that woman if I was close enough to stop it. Why doesn’t shit like that every happen when I’m around?
I’m not as big as you are. I’m 63, strong, and in decent shape. Been an athlete all my life and I know how to handle myself when the going gets tough. I probably would have assisted the young woman because, as the scorpion said to the frog in the familiar fable, “it’s in my nature” to defend someone who is being attacked by bullies.
I say “probably” because my decision always would depend on the circumstances. For example, I’d checkout whether the bully was packing heat first and I’d also check to see if a cop was nearby. If so, I’d probably draw his attention to the situation and let him solve it. Besides, inserting yourself in a fight when you don’t know who started it or what they are fighting about can get you seriously hurt and possibly killed, if you’re not careful.
Nevertheless, this looks like an unambiguous situation with two big assholes attacking a much smaller, lighter, and unarmed woman and then stomping her once they got her down and defenseless on the ground. She could have been irreparably injured or killed.
Standing and watching instead of stopping the assault by whatever means reasonably necessary is not acceptable behavior in my personal code of honor.