An InfoWars journalist who was attacked at a recent rally for Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is calling for openly gay mayor of South Bend to personally “condemn the violence.”
I was attending a @PeteButtigieg rally in Iowa when two of his supporters violently attacked my camera crew and I for simply being conservative. I am calling on Mayor Pete to denounce the violence from his supporters so conservatives know they can feel safe at his rallies. pic.twitter.com/waRYnrutwC
— Kaitlin Bennett (@KaitMarieox) June 9, 2019
“I was attending a @PeteButtigieg rally in Iowa when two of his supporters violently attacked my camera crew and I for simply being conservative,” reporter Kaitlin Bennett posted to Twitter Sunday, along with a video of the altercation. “I am calling on Mayor Pete to denounce the violence from his supporters so conservatives know they can feel safe at his rallies.”
The video shows two men walking into a shot of the stage as organizers and camera crews wrapped the rally in Cedar Rapids, prompting Bennett to engage the duo, one an older white man and the other a younger white man wearing a t-shirt that read “No body is illegal.”
“Hi, how are you?” Bennett questioned as the man turned his back, flipping two middle fingers behind him. “Do you usually treat women like that?”
The older man did a little dance with his middle fingers, and pointed them at the camera.
“Stick that in my face,” he said as Bennett approached with the microphone.
“I’m sorry?” she questioned.
“Don’t get any closer to me,” the man said.
“Why? What’s wrong? You’re flipping me off and getting in my shot,” Bennett said.
“Yup,” the man replied, before walking up on the camera man to invade his space. “Get that shit out of my face, f**k face.”
“I was over here,” the cameraman replied.
“Are you a Pete Buttigieg supporter?” Bennett questioned.
“We’re an American,” he said.
“Do you support Pete today?” she pressed.
“We’re Americans.”
“Ok, very cool,” Bennett said.
“Get that shit out of my face,” the man repeated.
Bennett appeared to take one step in the man’s direction to move the microphone a bit closer.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked.
“Do not walk up to me,” the man shot back.
“What are you going to do to me?” Bennett continued. “Are you threatening me?”
The younger man in the goofy t-shirt then pushed the cameraman aside and slapped at one of the crew.
“Whoa, that’s assault,” the crewmember said.
The younger man then took another swipe at the camera, threw a water bottle and swatted the microphone in Bennett’s hand before a shirtless black man intervened in the melee.
“Stop, stop, stop,” the man shouted, putting his body between the hecklers and camera crew. “Walk it off!”
The two men attempted to argue with the good Samaritan, but he wasn’t having it.
“Walk it off!” he shouted over them.
The video concludes with Bennett putting Buttigieg on the spot to condemn the hate and violence, ironically the labels Democrats work hard to affix to conservatives they disagree with.
“I’m personally calling for Pete Buttigieg himself to condemn specifically the attacks that were made on me for being simply a conservative at his rally,” she said. “Pete, condemn it! Condemn the violence!”
She also filed a police report and solicited help on Twitter to identify the assailants.
“Thank you go to the gentleman at the end for stepping in to get these two away from me. Please help me identify them so I can file a police report, since they ran off after,” Bennett tweeted. “Update: I’ve filed a police report and they’re looking for the suspects.”
The Buttigieg campaign declined to comment about the situation when contacted by KCRG.
Cedar Rapids Police told the new site the two individuals involved in the assault are from Illinois, but declined to identify the men.
“There are no plans to file charges as authorities say the case was closed at the request of the victims, ‘because they are from Ohio and there would be challenges having them testify in court,’” KCRG reports.
The Liberty Hangout, the crew working the event on behalf of InfoWars, told KCRG the police statement is untrue.
“This statement is untrue, and we are working with the Cedar Rapids police department to figure out why they said this to you,” the group said in a statement. “We visited the police station three times yesterday to provide evidence and assist in identifying the suspects. We made it explicitly clear to the officer on duty that we wanted to press charges, even though the suspects live in Illinois. We don’t care if we need to fly to Illinois or Iowa to handle the matter, we want to see justice served.
“Kaitlin and our crew have been assaulted numerous times in the past, and nothing ever gets done, which is why we are so intent on seeing the Cedar Rapids police department follow through with charging the suspects that attacked us in Greene Square Park,” the statement continued.
“This was a politically motivated attack and it needs to be made clear that violence of any kind is unacceptable. Cedar Rapids will continue to be a major hub for presidential rallies over the course of the next year, and voters of all backgrounds shouldn’t have to feel like nothing will be done if they get violently attacked in the city.”
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