At a town hall meeting last night in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., staged by Rep. Allen West (R-FL), liberal talk show host Nicole Sandler was taken out of the event hall and arrested on camera.
She was initially just being removed from the hall, but Sandler shouted at the officer to take his hands off of her as they were escorting her out, likely providing a trigger for the arrest. Confronted by Sandler's boyfriend, the officer did not say why he was arresting her.
One man who repeatedly disrupted the event kept asking why West had nearly appointed as his chief of staff a fringe conservative who once advocated "bullets" as a political solution if votes didn't accomplish their goals.
Unfortunately for the dissenters, West refused to answer questions from the audience. He instead chose only to address pre-screened and approved queries, essentially ignoring constituents who pelted him with criticism.
Sandler has reportedly been released from police custody on a $25 bond, but individuals answering phones at the Broward County Sheriff's Department and the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department refused to confirm this to Raw Story.
Sandler was reportedly charged with trespassing on private property after a warning.
Speaking to a blogger at The Political Carnival shortly after her release, Sandler reportedly said that officers sprayed her with mace earlier this morning after she refused to return to a holding cell. This claim could not be independently verified.
A Ft. Lauderdale Police Dept. document detailing the arresting officer's take on Sandler's arrest has been acquired by Raw Story.
In it, officer William Rousseau claims that Sandler was told to leave the event because "her behavior caused many of the audience members to enter into a verbal altercation that threatened to become physical."
The officer also claims that he instructed Sandler to leave the premises "at least a dozen times," but that she would not. He further claimed that Sandler became "physically aggressive with this ofc., pushing me several times."
Video footage does not seem to bear that out, and Sandler clearly agreed to leave the event. She did however shout at the officer that he should not touch her, but did not appear to resist when he decided to make an arrest.
When the police arrest peaceful citizens at a public event because a cowardly GOP representative is afraid to to face the music over his bad votes in the House, we are not in a free society. Allen West is a bigot, an egomaniac and in the pocket of the big businesses looking to steal that Medicare money. There's audio at the link as well.
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