WaPo reports, Crowder files complaint with Michigan state troopers:
Delivering on a pledge that he made this week on “Hannity,” Fox News contributor Steven Crowder has filed a complaint with the Michigan State Police in connection with the pummeling he sustained during the union protests Tuesday in the Michigan capital of Lansing. Richard Hale, the shift supervisor at the Lansing post of the Michigan State Police, just told the Erik Wemple Blog that he’d spoken with Crowder not long ago. “By calling in, he’s in essence filed a complaint. He’s initiated the process for the filing of a criminal complaint,” said Hale….“We’ll have to do an investigation and submit it” to prosecutors, said Hale
Via Newsbusters (h/t Instapundit), left-wing blogs are claiming that the union guy was justified because Crowder initiated the contact. The evidence for that is that the union guy is seen getting up from the ground.
The story took an interesting twist on Wednesday, when liberal blogger Chris Savage claimed that the footage of the incident had been “selectively edited” to unfairly portray the union protester as the aggressor.
Selective editing at about the 0:39 mark shows what appears to be union guy attacking Crowder for no apparent reason. However, if you look closely, you’ll see that the guy is getting up off the ground — that he was NOT the one that became aggressive first.
The blogs claim the video was selectively edited to cut that out the image of the guy getting up, but in fact — as I discussed the other day in response to such a charge — the original video shows the union guy getting up from the ground and is missing only about a second or so of that image.
More important, the video does not show how the guy got on the ground, and certainly does not show the guy under any threat that would justify him punching Crowder in the face. Crowder was several feet away when the guy lunged at him and sucker punched him.
The interesting thing is that these left wing blogs seem to have a new love for standing your ground, arguing that the union guy on the ground had no obligation to step back or retreat, and was entitled to stand his ground and initiate retaliatory aggression.
Stand your ground does seem to be a theme, as it was used by the “Vice-Griever” union guy who also is a city councilman, and who hurled profanity at Crowder:
He is not down playing the use of his dirty words, and he is not apologizing for them either. “Once I realized what he was doing, emotions took over,” says Marsee. “I know it wasn’t very impressive. But at the time, and I seen the camera, I seen the camera in my face. My passion for the union took over and the gentleman, he did back off. I didn’t have to back off. I held my ground. That’s all it was. And this union should told their ground.”
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