August 7, 2009 11:32 AM

Violence Breaks Out at Democratic Town Halls

By
Stephanie Condon
Topics
Health Care
(AP)
Angry mobs protesting health care reform continue to crop up at Democratic town halls across the country, with shouts and shoves most recently exchanged in both Tampa, Fla. and St. Louis, Mo.

At a Tampa forum, Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor struggled to make herself heard and eventually cut her appearance short as dozens of people shouted "Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!" reports the St. Petersburg Times. Amid the crowd of about 1,500, the newspaper reported, other chants rang out like, "Tell the truth! Tell the truth!" "Read the bill!" "Forty-million illegals! Forty million illegals!"

With the auditorium at the Tampa Children's Board of Hillsborough County quickly reaching full capacity, Tampa Police started turning people away. Subsequently, violence broke out outside, reports local CBS affiliate WTSP, with at least one person being treated for minor injuries. A photojournalist reported had his glasses and camera equipment broken.

The event was sponsored by sponsored by state Rep. Betty Reed and the Service Employees International Union, but many protesters said they were prompted to attend by the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative television personality Glenn Beck, the St. Petersburg Times reported. Other protesters reported receiving e-mails with talking points to speak out against health care reform from the Hillsborough Republican Party.

"The insurance industry and … Republican activists are manufacturing a lot of these phony protests,'' Castor said, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Meanwhile, six people were arrested Thursday night in St. Louis, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, after health care reform protests broke out at what was intended to be a forum on aging with Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan. Three people were reportedly arrested for suspicion of committing peace disturbances, two for suspicion of assault and one for resisting arrest.

An unanticipated crowd of several hundred people turned out to the Bernard Middle School gym in south St. Louis County, the Post-Dispatch reported, due in part to the local Tea Party Coalition, which urged members to attend the forum and subsequently spurred Democrats to boost their attendance as well.

One conservative African-American activist, who was taken to the emergency room of a local hospital with injuries, told the newspaper that another black man used a racial slur against him and then physically attacked him.

"It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked," he reportedly said.

One liberal attendee who was arrested told the Post-Dispatch his 51-year-old female friend was sprayed with mace by police officers after attempting to takepictures of the scene.

And here are some amatuer YouTube videos taken from the scene in Tampa:








Add a Comment See all 45 Comments
by maryjessel August 10, 2009 5:44 PM EDT
When the anti-Iraq-war protests were in high gear in 2003, a group of anti-war protesters actually pulled down their pants and defecated in public on the steps of the San Francisco City Hall. I don't recall Nancy Pelosi calling THEM "un-American." A few conservatives shouting at townhalls sound rather mild in comparison to public pooping. But if you don't like their tactics, liberals, just remember, they learned them from you. Remember the Chicago Seven? I do.
Reply to this comment
by patess August 8, 2009 11:12 PM EDT
Suddenly the media takes an interest in who organizes the grassroots outpouring of emotion at townhall meetings and tea parties. Your bias is showing---again.

Unions and leftwing groups have staged protests of varying levels of civility, including violence, for 50 years. The media didn't care to examine who organized these rallies and protests. On April 12, 2008, the SEIU violently disrupted a meeting of fellow unionists over a policy dispute. One person was hospitalized with a head injury, another died.

The Democrats are highly organized in their plans to sell the legislation and their strategy includes involvement of Democrat loyalists in unions and special interest groups. The drug industry announced they will spend $150 million on advertising supporting the Democrat plan. Unions are already out there with thugs beating up people. But, oh no, did somebody send an email to that little old lady who is shaking her fist at her Congressman!!! EEEK! Call out the Red Guards to restore the proper power leverage.

The media is disgracing itself with this phony umbrage over protests which have the most minimal amount of amateur organization. The vast majority of these protesters never engaged in any political activism before in their entire lives and you know it.
Reply to this comment
by alanrichard1 August 10, 2009 2:49 PM EDT
Unions do have a history that includes perpetration of violence. Non-trivial fact question, though: Was the first violence associated with unions perpetrated by unions or by someone else? How long did this go on before unions began to fight back? And when was the last time a president used the military to shut down a nonviolent union strike?

Oh yeah.
by alanrichard1 August 10, 2009 2:52 PM EDT
This alone - "the most minimal amount of amateur organization" - brands this poster as a liar or an idiot, because the evidence for top-down organization is all over the internet, in the form of photocopies of memos that actually went out to Tea Bagger groups, themselves organized - the memos exist for this too - by Dick Armey's well-funded organization.

Clearly not amateur organization, and if you didn't know this, you easily could have found out. You are deliberately spreading lies or you just don't care enough about reality to check it out.
by frogsbasement August 8, 2009 7:36 PM EDT
It is time for Healthcare supporters to start showing up with baseball bats.

It is time for supporters to start charging into the churches and meetings of these bumbs and apply the same tactics.

What surprises me (and I don't know why)is how much coverage the media is giving these filthy creeps. If they were protesting against WHO, they wouldn't be on the news.

Why aren't news agencies showing programs on all the people who are denied coverage and the elderly who are bankrupted by the cost of operations and medicines? there is a massive bias going on in support of the filth on the right.

Time for revolution.
Reply to this comment
by flyday611 August 8, 2009 1:54 AM EDT
Actually Health Care should be accessible for all Americans in one of richest nations in the world no matter how much monetary debt we are in. No one Said a word for 30 years as the debt became a mountain...Now everyone is all of sudden concerned since someone may have a right to obtain good health care coverage . NO one said a word when the Defense spending ballooned for unusable weapons or waste money on a mars rover that could not send pictures back because of communication error in a computer chip. Now we have outrage over health care???? Manufactured outrage is all I see as the Medical insurance companies and crooks like Rick Scott try to protect their profits. People wake UP!
Reply to this comment
by jeffinnh August 8, 2009 10:54 PM EDT
OK I have a problem with this comment. Trust me each of those places where you said "no one said", plenty of people were talking. Thinking that people are going to these meetings because they are paid is simply wrong. I want to go to one of these meetings and am not affiliated with any groups and wouldn't want to be.

"People wake UP!", I hope your reading your own message and doing the same thing.
by licht1 August 7, 2009 8:29 PM EDT
Obama's gonna kill Grandma?

See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/obama-wants-to-kill-your-grandma/
Reply to this comment
by gonyse August 7, 2009 8:17 PM EDT
Now that obama knows my IP address, let him come after me. The damn socialist needs something for his technology czar to do. Americans, dont give up. The facist needs to be silenced.
Reply to this comment
by alanrichard1 August 10, 2009 2:46 PM EDT
Your knowledge of fascism - it was a real movement, you know, in the 30s - must come from a comic book. Since you haven't bothered to check out what it really meant, to read any of its actual propaganda or any of the actual history that's been available for 40 - 50 years now, I can only assume you don't care much about what fascism was really like. Surely, though, you know how destructive it was; why wouldn't you at least want to know something about it to prevent its recurrence? Oh, I know: you don't care about destruction, as long as it's not Obama, its' got to be better, right? You are exactly the kind of person Mussolini loved.
by nprybes August 7, 2009 7:13 PM EDT
How can you defend a health care bill,when no-one knows what is in it?
-----------

How can we learn what's in it, if you idiots keep shutting down town halls with your yelling?
Reply to this comment
by WakeUp1984 August 7, 2009 7:03 PM EDT
WHAT VIOLENCE???? THIS IS THE AMERICAN HERITAGE OF PROTESTING BAD LEADERSHIP ON BOTH SIDES.....THERE IS NO RIGHT THERE IS NO LEFT.... READ INFOWARS.COM AND WAKE UP TO THE TRUTH
Reply to this comment
by redrockraven August 7, 2009 6:31 PM EDT
Here's the emerging American version of the Nazi fascist's formula: combine millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered Republican troublemakers who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing -- Evangelical religious underground. Then put this little mob together with the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it works -- American Brown Shirts at the ready.

It's time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed, vilified and run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible Republicans -- if any -- that are still in the party and who want to see the fortunes of their party revived. Republican leaders taking insurance industry money via lobbying firms and using it to organize what amounts to roving bands of thugs not only need to be exposed but thrown out of the public debate forever. They should become absolute pariahs.

It's time to give these garbage townhall disruptions their rightful name: insurance industry funded fascism.
Reply to this comment
by alanrichard1 August 10, 2009 2:43 PM EDT
Freddie6, no, he's reporting the facts: big money and irrational mobs are coming together at these town meetings, and I'm not talking about the unions. We know that the organization of these groups is top-down not bottom up because the memos have been leaked and they're now all over the internet.

And there AREN'T too many of you: we proved that in November when we decisively won the election. But I suppose you're counting on there being more of you with guns, and you have more people with practice shooting, and you are less like to hesitate to shoot another human being. Well, you may have me there.
by carlyt1 August 7, 2009 5:21 PM EDT
It is time for the GOP to take a stand and denounce these threats. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588
Reply to this comment
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