Renee Crawford of the “Crawford’s Take” blog has a good first-hand account of the violence at yesterday’s “tea party” rally on Milwaukee’s lakefront:
I hear a commotion. I looked up and saw an angry mob of angry white men chasing an older white man with a backpack. He was yelling “I have a right to free speech too.” The crowd was yelling, “You should die. You’re not an American., etc…” They started grabbing at him as he kept trying to leave the event. The crowd was growing (eventually to about 30 people) and the man clearly scared and angry and being grabbed, pushed and surrounded to impede his attempts to escape,
The man traveled about 300 yards attempting to escape the growing crowd. The crowd was riled up and screaming en masse, continuing to chase the man down, stop his movement, push and pull on his and in general attack the guy.
Then Joe the Plumber joined the tussle. I kid you not. I have no idea his role in it, just that he was IN THE MIDDLE of the crowd. The sheriffs get there, I turn to look at Joe the Plumber and the next thing I know the guy being assaulted by the crowd is bloody on the ground under the knee of two sheriffs and being cuffed. His face was bloody, there was something about a broken camera and I became scared of the crowd who were cheering and congratulating the sheriffs for “doing a great job”.
Truly this is an unfortunate occurrence. Violence is never a good thing, especially in the context of trying to stifle opposing viewpoints, as is alleged to be the case in this instance.
I was there. And there are videos on Youtube of the event to back it up. The rally was completely peaceful except for the one incident being mentioned. Many elderly in lawn chairs were sitting up front. Lots of families and kids. It was about as radical as watching a 4th of July parade. Except for the belligerent counter protester who after starting an argument with a man about health care (that Joe the plumber broke up) walks away and slaps the camera out of a 15 year old girls hand. This is when the Police who had been watching the argument jumped on the man, took him to the ground and cuffed him. There was no other contact to this man except for the Police.
By the way, I’m not sure what fantasy land this Renee Crawford lives in, but there were no angry mobs of people roughing up or attacking this person, and the YouTube videos back it up. Please people, don’t start believing liars without researching it yourself.
Never said he was arrested. As it turns out the guy that looks like Joe the plumber is. Unfortunately I have to admit the reason people were angry with the man with the backpack did have to do with what he said. On the other hand if I went to a Democrat rally and started yelling pro-conservative ideas and calling them liars and telling accusing them of not being Christian, and generally being belligerent I’d be asked to leave or escorted out
I did do what I should have done in the first place, I went to Renee’s original posting and read what was there – Found the original more disturbing
…anti-gov’t/anti-healthcare rally with about 300-500 people at Veteran’s Park.
Ok, 300 to 500, I don’t think that estimate can even remotely be put into the realm of ‘wrong’ this is a deliberate lie, or she was at a different rally
The crowd was growing (eventually to about 30 people) and the man clearly scared and angry and being grabbed, pushed and surrounded to impede his attempts to escape, I believed was in imminent danger. He was shouting back at them and attempting to defend himself from the crowd
Again the video shows that aside from someone putting a hand on his shoulder to turn him towards the exit no one was touching him when he walked past the fence/barrier there was no one behind him impeding his path. Further the video shows LE had converged in the area just to make sure no one got out of hand.
— As an aside you can see in the video that he’s not bloody as he’s leaving the event
— Also ‘about 30 people’ would have been 6-10 percent of the Renee’s entire crowd
Renee actually does mention the young woman in her post as well
…there was something about a broken camera…
There was a girl who said something about someone in that crowd punching her
The problem is that she is reporting AS FACT things that are clearly contradicted in the video. The only ‘qualifier’ she has is when she says the believed the man “was in imminent danger” While I question her judgment of the situation I’m not going to argue what she believed. She does, like anyone else, have the normal ‘qualifiers’ in her story, expressing what she felt at the time. No problems with that at all it’s what she is reporting AS FACT that I’m questioning. The video does not support what she claims to have seen in. I also looked at her profile and given the level of involvement in the community, what she posted cannot be described as anything other than irresponsible. According to her post even the police received different information.
The sheriffs said to me, “Well, that’s a different story than the other people just told us.”
In the section I provided she is not offering an opinion, she is presenting a scary situation to her readers. What would the purpose of that be other than to present a very different impression of what was otherwise a peaceful event If not for the people who filmed the even the reality wouldn’t have come out At least not in a form where the reality of the situation could be seen – we’d just be yelling back and forth about who’s eyewitness account is believable. In her posts she even tries to have it both ways: on the one hand she’s offering an eyewitness account, and on the other she “ran to get the sheriffs” Which is it? How can she be giving a statment of what went on while she was running to get the sheriffs? I read some of the posts from her readers. Some of them are acting like she just came back from a war zone
Holy moley, Renee. So disturbing. Please be safe, and thank you for telling us what you saw.
I am glad you and your husband are safely away from the “peoples mob.”
Don’t go to any more rallys Renee. No one is safe from those anti-Americans!!!!
The original account can be accessed from the ‘first-hand account’ link at the top of the page, or here http://www.crawfordstake.com/2009/09/anti-govt-rally-masked-as-anti.html
Jason,
Well put. Saw your input on Crawford’s take too. Tried reading the back and forth between you and Anon… couldn’t take it. You admit to speculating an idea, and Anon goes into a 3 page diatribe on why you are lying. Wow.
The fact of the matter is, either Crawford was lying (likely) or (dangerously) thinks she was telling the truth, about a lot of things.
1. There were 300-500 people at the rally. Chalk this up to a either a lie, or that Crawford can’t count.
2. Man was assaulted by the crowd. Video proves this statement is false.
3. Angry mob of 30 people surrounding the man, grabbing at him as he is trying to leave. Videos prove this is false.
The only thing she admitted, with a qualifier, was that Joe the Plumber was there and he may/may not have been involved. There have been no retractions about any of her other statements. Although perhaps there is no need… when you’re caught lying so bold-facedly and you get called on it, what can you do besides throw your hands up in the air and say “ya got me!”
I was at the rally too, near the stage. I didn’t see any of this, but what I can say was this was about the most peaceful rally I could have imagined. I only heard about the fight/arrest after the fact.
The first comments to her blog just killed me… “glad you got out of there, Renee, geez!” Like she was walking through an abandoned land mine or a hot LZ in Afghanistan or something. She went to a rally, where 1 person caused a disturbance and was arrested. She is probably more likely to be assaulted on her way to work than at that rally.
Not to mention as well, the title of her blog was “Anti-health care rally masked as anti-govt health care turns violent.” Now, if you’re going to nail me for that not being verbatim, let me stop you there. I’m not here for semantics. The fact of the matter is, it was neither. It was an anti-tax rally. Sometimes anti-tax and anti-govt have a lot of the same sentiments, but the idea of it being masked as an anti-health care rally is ridiculous, as health care was not the main subject matter. Taxes, and this administration’s tax policies, was the subject matter.
“Blue Bloggers,” feel free to attack me all you want. And I’ll just say “thank you.” Because everything I’ve said here is true, can be substantiated with video evidence, and your attacks on me only show me one thing: We are winning the argument, and your reversion to insults lets me know you don’t have a leg to stand on.
Joe
I was there and it was a beautiful day with no commotions and 10,000 people. I was at front so I only heard about it afterwords, These libs have one agenda to discredit the honest citizens who they fear. Fact is libs are 20% and now that their agenda is clear to us the masses wont have it. Obama has over reached and they are desperate to discredit the citizens.
Nothing they are doing will stand, and they are starting to understand that.
The stench of their fear is unbearable.
djmelfi…People don’t fear you…they are annoyed (and probably slightly amused) by your arrogance. You think you can dictate to people how they should live…what God they should believe in…the morals/values they should live by…etc. Why don’t you just move out of this country if you think it’s so bad?? I personally like my freedoms…I like the separation of church and state…and I certainly cannot stomach all you religious hypocrites preaching to me.
Yeah, there’s only a few things I fear in life, and conservatives/tea baggers aren’t among those things.
Geez, is this still being kicked around? Would have thought that between the eyewitness accounts and videos that this would have been settled
Anon, I’m going to shock you: I agree with you on a couple things
I believe in a free country people should be able worship whatever divine being they please, or none at all, as they please. As far as morals and values, there are certain minimum levels that come with living in a civilized society – generally that amounts to treating everyone with dignity and respect, & being neighborly but once those are being met people should be able to live any way they want
— Actually if we could manage that we’d be able to actually get on with what makes this a great country and back to being an example for other nations, I can hope though
I have to say though, the separation of church and state thing has always been a pet peeve of mine – it’s not in the Constitution, anywhere, at all.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The whole separation of church and state issue comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists – as I recall there was a larger religious following in the area that required fasting on a day of the week and the Danbury Baptists were concerned that they would be forced to do so as well
Jefferson wrote:
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State
So basically the government is not allowed to establish any religion over another nor require or ban how people choose to worship (or not) but that’s it. There’s nothing banning a Christmas tree, or Menorah or whatever in the public square or school, or any public land
Zach W, I know you’re not the only one doing it, but I would really like to see the term ‘tea bagger’ dropped. If you look it up you’ll find it’s kind of nasty, and I think that one of the things you and Anon will agree with is that it’s never a good thing to denigrate a group of people with ugly slurs just because you don’t agree with their opinions. Tea partiers, or tax protesters, would be just fine thank you