Carpenter testified he did not know that [the protesters had forbidden photography], but said he considers himself an ally of the Black Lives Matter movement. He paused to take a picture before walking from his car to his Capitol office, he said, not realizing his phone was set to shoot video. His 11-second video shows [defendant Kerida] O’Reilly and [former co-defendant Samantha] Hamer charging toward him before his phone is jostled away....
That's what happens when you attack someone who's shooting video: There's video of your attack. And what does it matter that they had their own anti-photography rule or that Carpenter would have followed their rule if he'd only known about it?
The attack on Carpenter happened on June 24, 2020, the night protesters tore down the Capitol Square statues of "Forward" and Hans Christian Heg, that is, the night they tore down their own reputation.
We're told that "as a crowd closed in on him during a midnight protest over police brutality last year, just before some in the group began to hit and kick him," Carpenter said he thought, "Holy cannoli, what’s going to happen?" That's the sort of Wisconsin form of expression that people outside of Wisconsin find folksy and charming, but, as Carpenter went on to elaborate, what he thought was that he would be killed and he continues to suffer from "a lot of anxiety and depression."
There's also this enigmatic Carpenter quote: "It’s created a lot of political difficulties that weren’t appreciated." I'll just guess that means he really, really wanted the image of ally and now, here he is, witness for the prosecution.
UPDATE: The jury acquitted O'Reilly.
पोस्ट्स
