The Internet was abuzz this weekend when Andrew Breitbart was captured on video taking on a group of occupiers who were protesting CPAC at the Wardman Marriott in Washington, D.C.
Video posted by the Huffington Post showed Breitbart facing off with a group of about a hundred Occupy demonstrators who were shouting leftist epithets. Andrew responded by shouting, “Stop raping people! Murderers!”
At first glance, when only watching the Huffington Post footage, it may seem like Andrew lost his cool, and that he was provoking these otherwise peaceful demonstrators. What the Huffington Post did not report is why Andrew marched toward the Occupy group–what was happening moments before Andrew came outside ,and what had been taking place at the conference throughout the day.
I know what happened because I was with Andrew during the day and at the precise moment he faced off with the Occupiers outside. In fact, I was the one who told the police everything would be alright as they slowly pushed me back toward the hotel with a plastic shield, and I pushed Andrew back–even as police threatened to take action against the Occupy protestors only a few yards away as the latter pounded their drums and shouted.
This was an interesting moment for me, since I used to be a Washington, D.C. prosecutor, and my special area of prosecution was unlawful protesting. There was no question in mind that the Occupiers were unlawfully assembling, inciting a riot and committing acts of disorderly conduct, three statutory violations under District of Columbia law.
The Occupy protestors were literally holding conservatives or any well-dressed guest captive inside the hotel, shouting and acting in a hostile and intimidating manner–even screaming profanities at women who merely came outside to make a phone call, smoke a cigarette or, God forbid, catch a cab to another capitalist juncture.
They were inciting, intimidating and obstructing.
The Occupiers were not supposed to cross the public street and trespass onto private hotel property, but by Friday evening that’s exactly what they did. It was intimidation, pure and simple. Their implied message was: we’re tougher than you and there are more of us so you’d better think twice before coming outside.
Andrew did not.
He just went outside to show them he was not afraid–and since they were using hostility, he made a point to call them out on their violence by pointing out that people have been sexually assaulted and murdered in the midst of Occupy camps and protests.
Therefore, this illegal trespass that was slowly moving toward the front doors of the hotel was a blatant act of intimidation. The Occupy movement is dangerous and they know it. That’s the little Ace card they’re holding up their sleeve.
I’ve met a few people from the Occupy movement that I like. I’m not saying they’re all bad people because they’re not. Andrew admitted during the conference that there are some decent people in the Occupy movement who mean well, but they’re being exploited because they’ve been sucked in by a message they want to believe is being promoted, as opposed to the violence the movement is actually causing.
I agree with that, and I’ll even go a step further. I personally understand the frustration that the Occupy movement sprung from, and if they were protesting white-collar crime instead of capitalism and they actually used civil, peaceful methods instead of the violent ones to which they profess, I might even be out there with them.
But that’s not what they do. They break the law and people get hurt.
Throughout the weekend, Occupy members not only protested at the CPAC event; they also bought tickets under false pretenses to infiltrate the conference and disrupt it. Police and Breitbart reporters exposed a number of Occupy members who had worn semi-professional clothing into the conference with desperate, failed hopes of disrupting Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech on Saturday.
Some of them were devious enough to even wear Romney t-shirts and other Republican political attire. All of this just to trespass and commit acts of disorderly conduct in hopes of ultimately obstructing our First Amendment rights, which the left says they champion so dearly.
The Occupy movement is not a peaceful one. Andrew sees the Occupy movement for what it has become and he knew that its blatant act of intimidation at CPAC was a veiled threat of violence. He walked outside and faced them to let them know what they need to understand, which is that we are not running away.
We are not the one percent. We are mainstream-America, working people, both blue collar and white collar, who believe that everyone is entitled to choose their own destiny and earn it. We are not going bow to intimidation, threats or violence and we are not going to trade in capitalism for socialism, anarchism or decadent violence.
Occupiers: America is not afraid of you.
Big Government
