Thursday, September 3, 2009

TPM: We're resorting to assault???

Oh boy. Coming after the Miami Times story, refering to an incident in Florida, something has also happened out here in L.A. (actually way out in Ventura County...very Conservative Country), only this time it was the Pro-Reform person assaulting the Anti-Reform person.

A KTLA report from a health care rally near Los Angeles last night may not include gun-toting protesters, but it does describe another sort of weapon: teeth. As in, a pro-reform protester used his teeth to bite off the finger of an anti-reformer.

According to KTLA, a group of anti-health care reform protesters set up across the street from about 100 pro-reform demonstrators at a MoveOn.org-sponsored rally. Apparently, a pro-reformer walking through the anti-reform group to join the rest of his gang got into an altercation with a 65-year-old man who was on the anti-health care team.

What happened next is not entirely clear. The initial report from KTLA, citing an unnamed witness, said the man who got his finger bitten off was walking through the anti-reform group to get to the pro-reform side and punched someone from the anti-reform side, who responded by biting off the pro-reformer's pinky.


UPDATE 2:03pm, Pacific: Pinky Man, hereafter indentified as William J. Rice, apparently threw the first punch.

Oh, and he had Medicare.