I just got off the phone with Karoli Kuns, a blogger in Camarillo, CA, who attended the health reform rally last night where a pro-reform demonstrator bit off the finger of an aggressive 65-year-old anti-reformer.
Earlier, we were a little unclear about who did what to who, but Kuns has helped clarify things.
On one side of a big intersection outside of a shopping mall in Thousand Oaks, CA, were between 150 and 200 pro-reform demonstrators at a well-publicized MoveOn rally. Across the street were no more than a dozen anti-reform protesters who arrived just before the MoveOn rally began. Four were holding hands in silent prayer. Another wore a tea party t-shirt. Some held signs with slogans like "No Obamacare." All but one were relatively restrained.
The exception was a tall 65-year-old man in an orange shirt who Kuns said "was displaying what I would consider to be intimidating behavior." He first picked on a pro-reform woman more than a foot shorter than him, stretching his arms out and shooing her away as he advanced on her and she backpedaled.
"It appeared to me that he was saying, basically, get on your own side of the street now," Kuns said. "He was chasing her."
Next on the anti-reformer's harassment list was a pro-reformer who appeared to be in his late 30s or early 40s, was stocky, and several inches shorter than the 65-year-old. Though Kuns isn't sure how the pro-reformer ended up on the anti side of the street, she saw the two men face to face, exchanging words.
Then the anti-reformer in the orange shirt "punches him straight up in the face, right between the eyes." The smaller pro-reformer's glasses and hat flew off, and he fell into the street.
"I don't know who started it wordwise," Kuns said, "but I can tell you for sure that the guy who threw the first punch was the anti guy. And can he punch hard! He knocked this guy down into the street."
The pro-reformer got up. The anti-reformer tried to block him from standing on the curb. A short scuffle ensued, and it was unclear to Kuns who was doing what to whom. The anti-reformers surrounding the fighting men stayed back. When the fight ended, the pro-reformer crossed the street and announced to the MoveOn rally that he'd bitten the man's finger off.
"He was certainly not swaggering," Kuns said, referencing earlier reports saying he had been. "He was pissed and he was shaking."
"He was angry. His demeanor was what you'd expect from somebody who'd just been hit hard. He was defensive."
Sheriffs deputies soon arrived. Kuns isn't sure where the finger biter took off to, but did see the bitten man walk in the direction of a hospital a couple blocks away. The AP has since reported that a hospital spokeswoman said the anti-reformer lost half his finger, though doctors reattached it and sent him home last night.
"She says he had Medicare," the story states.
Health care (Insurance) reform just got real
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Originally Posted by The Devil's Sergeant
