A black protester was detained for getting sucker-punched by a white man at a Trump rally
Donald Trump protesters have been greeted with violence by supporters at a rally for the Republican frontrunner for president. Again. And this time, the victim was handcuffed by security.
On Wednesday, a woman posted a video of a small group being escorted out of a Trump rally in Fayettevile, North Carolina by a man in uniform. One member of the group, a black man, is punched in the face by an apparently white bystander as he walks up the stairs.
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Here’s another video of the incident, shot from a different angle:
Help me identify the racist Trump supporter who repeatedly punched this protestor in the face last night.CRIMINAL!https://t.co/lNrUME2jCo
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) March 10, 2016
A now deleted video, showed the victim, Rakeem Jones, being held down by a uniformed man after he was assaulted.
Jones told The Washington Post that the attack was as unexpected as it looks. ““Boom, he caught me,” he said, adding, “After I get it, before I could even gain my thoughts, I’m on the ground getting escorted out. Now I’m waking up this morning looking at the news and seeing me getting hit again.”
Jones said that though the people he was with were yelling, they weren’t violent. Plus, yelling isn’t unusual at a Trump rally. For Jones, the blame rests with the police. “The police jumped on me like I was the one swinging…. this dude really hit me and they let him get away with it. I was basically in police custody and got hit.”
The identity of the men who held down Jones is unclear—representatives from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office and the Fayetteville Police Department said their officers didn’t detain anyone at the rally, and Jones said he was not placed under arrest.
According to local news outlet WRAL, the assailant has been identified as John McGraw, 78, of Linden. He’s been charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor according to the sheriff’s office. The WSJ reports that the police response to the incident is being investigated.
Yesterday’s incident marks the tenth time someone has been hurt at a Trump event, per Slate.
Perhaps Trump rallies would be less violent if Trump didn’t say things like, about one protester, “maybe he should have been roughed up,” or, about another, “I’d like to punch him in the face,” or, in general, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Just a thought.
This post has been updated to reflect recent developments.
Danielle Wiener-Bronner is a news reporter.