Nope, No Justification for Assaulting Valle

RedState has a video of what Lauren Valle was doing before the assault, which RedState seems to think justifies a bunch of thugs assaulting her. Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Here it is:

About 17 seconds into the video, you can make out Valle, in a red hoodie and blond wig, approaching Rand’s car and holding up her sign in front of the car window. By 19 seconds into the video, you can see that some guys had surrounded her and gotten her away from the car. Then, in the video, that sequence is enlarged and repeated twice, so that after we’ve watched it the third time Valle has been pulled away from the car by the 32 second mark. Another 20 seconds or so goes by before we see Paul getting out of the car.

If you stop the video at exactly 55 seconds, you can see that Paul is just getting out of his car, and there’s a blond woman in a red top, carrying a cardboard sign, standing in front of the car. She’s several feet away. I believe Valle’s story is that some guys chased her around the front of the car and then assaulted her. I can’t tell if she is being chased around the front of the car, but I believe that is her, and she is definitely in front of the car. I’ll try to get a screen capture to show it better.

[Update: I watched it again, and if you keep your eyes at the top of the screen from about 50 seconds on, you clearly see Valle running in front of the car, and she doesn’t seem to be running toward Rand Paul. And you can make out what appears to be Pezzano, with his “don’t tread on me” button, chasing her.]

This video follows Paul and doesn’t show the assault, but we know from watching other videos that the assault begins about the time Paul had completely emerged from the car, which was just a second or two after what we see at the 55 second mark.

If anything, this video shows us that the assault had nothing to do with protecting Rand Paul. The goons assaulted her because they knew she was there to somehow ridicule their candidate, and they were angry.

In the earlier sequence, the one repeated three times, it appears the men who moved her away from the car used only enough force to do so. Basically, it appears some guy in a suit got between her and the car and shoved her away. I don’t have an issue with that.

However, this video corroborates that Valle was several feet away from Rand Paul when the assault began. So even if she were making another attempt to approach Rand Paul — the video doesn’t show her at this point — she was still some distance away from him, and Profitt and Pezzano could have just gotten between her and Paul and blocked her. Manhandling her to the ground and stepping on her clearly was uncalled for.

Update: I can’t believe I’m spending time on this, but I think it needs to be done, somehow — he’s another video showing Paul getting out of the car, and then the camera swings over to show the assault.

Now, I’ve looked at the “Paul getting out of the car” sequence in the first video above (which begins with someone opening the car door for Paul at about the 48 second mark), and compared it to the “Paul getting out of the car” sequence at the beginning of this second video. They are from different angles, and our view of Paul is blocked for a time in the second video. But the assault on Vale is going on while Paul is completely out of the car and walking away from the car, so that would have been just after we see someone who seems to be Valle standing in front of the car.

Here’s the screen capture:

So it appears that, one way or another, she was jumped and assaulted while she was several feet away from Rand Paul, probably less than five seconds after we see what seems to be her standing in front of the car.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

Update: See also No More Mr. Nice Blog.

Kentucky Stomper Wants Valle to Apologize to Him

Updates — The other man in the Kentucky stomping episode told Kentucky CBS affiliate WKYT that he didn’t approve of the stomp. “Another man involved in the altercation, Mike Pezzano, who held down Ms. Valle, tells NEWSFIRST he doesn’t condone Profitt’s actions.”

Profitt has another excuse — he had to stomp Lauren Valle because he has a bad back and can’t bend over. So what would he have done if he could have bent over? Punch her instead? She was already on the ground and being held down by Pezzano, and not resisting, so exactly what did he think still needed to be done?

Get this: “And when asked if he would apologize to Valle. ‘I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you,’ Profitt said.”

Also according to WKYT, “Lauren Valle has been released from the hospital and is recovering from injuries including a concussion and a sprained shoulder and arm.”

At Hateway Jim’s site, a commenter who claims he was there has an eyewitness account that sounds plausible to me.

I was at the rally from the start with my 19 year son. … We were only a few feet & got a good view of the events that happened. We saw everything that happened. I have to say this but the headline & story posted here is not correct & to be honest is… not telling the truth. … I’m sorry but she did not go after Mr Paul, she was in front closest to the curb where Mr Paul’s suv would park. She was pushed towards the back by two large men. A few people noticed that. I guess because some people called her a hippie & an agent. But we didn’t notice that or cared, one older lady said “Hey young man that’s not how you treat a young woman” Paul’s suv pulled up she then started to walk around to suv like others were doing for a better view. At that point someone yelled out “She’s going after Paul!” Another women assumed they meant her and she moved away. The same two men moved towards the young lady, at that point another woman yelled: “Leave her alone!”, that’s when she ran & looked very scared. My son was about to moved towards one of the men & that’s when the camera’s pick up the action. I grabbed him just in time we were right behind the camera man. After the event a good amount of people wanted the police to arrest both men & a few other people.

With the caveat that there’s no way to know if the guy was really there or not — It’s worth going to the link to read the whole comment (it’s #102). He is stunned at how the incident is being reported on Faux News and sounds like a disillusioned man. Not that the rest of the Hateway crowd cared; they are still convinced that Valle just got what was coming to her.

The Right is trying to paint Valle as a dangerous radical who has been arrested for her actions in the past. According to media reports, her most notorious prior acts were “defacing” a drilling boat after the Deepwater Horizon spill and unfurling a “Free Tibet” banner in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics. She doesn’t have a history of violent activism, in other words.

In the drilling boat incident, she and some others working for Greenpeace painted anti-Actic drilling messages addressed to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on some boat. Hardly a violent act, but the boat was private property so the group was afoul of the law.

And as for the Free Tibet sign — you go girl.

Valle says she never got a chance to get close to Paul because the Paul crew blocked her even as the candidate got out of his car. She believes they had identified her as a Moveon.org worker and “targeted” her. From what I’ve seen of the videos it does appear the Paul guys already had her surrounded and were manhandling her even as Paul got out of the car.

Updates — there was some question about whether Valle was groped as she was being shoved around. From these photographs, it appears possible.

See also Scott Lemieux’s review of wingnut excuses for the stomp.