Protestor Tazed at Santorum Rally from www.gayusathemovie.com on Vimeo.
[This article was edited to correct previous reports that the two bloggers were arrested during the rally, that information turned out to be inaccurate.]
Two bloggers from Gay U.S.A. attended a rally for Rick Santorum in Tacoma on Monday evening to see what the GOP presidential contender had to say about the same-sex marriage bill signed into law by Washington state's governor earlier in the day.
Three protesters were arrested during the event, including one protester who later in the evening glitter-bombed Santorum as he shook hands with supporters. Other reports tie the protesters to the Occupy Tacoma group. Here is a snippet of their account of the evening:
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About four police officers approached the group. Nathan left the group to turn the GAY U.S.A. camera spotlight rig away from Santorum and to focus the light onto the crowd, as Lapinski filmed the mayhem.
Just then the police dragged one of the protestors out of the group. Santorum all the while continued talking from the elevated podium stage, high above and well away from the crowd. He was nowhere near the fracas and was never close to any protestors. The crowd was relatively calm as the protestors chanted, yet the police saw fit to grab two of them.
Nathan cast the spotlight down on the man being tazed so Lapinski could keep filming. The Santorum campaign personnel kept trying to pull the spotlight out of Nathan’s hand. But she kept plugging it back in.
About four police dragged one unnamed young man to the ground and while the man’s hands were behind his back they started to drag him and tazed him. It did not seem necessary to taze him as he was not resisting. He was well apprehended at the time of the tazing. They put the cuffs on him and dragged him along the floor away from the venue, while the crowd of Santorum supporters were chanting U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A.
Just then, the Santorum supporters started to grab Lapinski and Nathan and their camera equipment and were yelling at them. They were calling them names “you filth, you filth.” One woman shouted “when you lay dying you will think about this and you will know you are going to hell.” One man put his hand in his pocket as if to indicate he had a weapon. People in the crowd started to pull on both Lapinski and Nathan.
Yikes! The remark about "dying" I'm almost certain I've heard in a horror film, maybe "Children of the Corn"? Not sure, it could've been a past report about another Santorum gathering.
That fright aside, below is another snippet from Monday's rally. Santorum seems to have become increasingly bold with those primary wins, and favorable poll results. He was confrontational with the protesters and loose with the Obama insults from the safety of the odd balcony he was perched from, far removed from the audience. He described the protesters as a “radical element” that represents “true intolerance,” but claimed that he understood “their frustration” at being left behind by “a president that doesn’t care about them.” “We've got to provide an opportunity for them,” he insisted. “Instead of standing here unemployed, yelling at somebody, to go out out there and try to work for a living.”
