Kevin Ksen at Indymedia talked with Cirignano after he shoved a woman to the ground:
I spoke with Cirignano after the rally and asked him his side of what happened, “That lady came up to the podium and I escorted her back into the audience.” Given what had transpired, I followed-up to make sure I heard correctly, “Escorted?”, “Yes, escorted”, he replied. Asked if he felt he assaulted her he shot back without hesitation, “Hell, no!” adding, “She’s an actress, she’s a professional actress.”
Immediately after the assault took place Loy and others turned to the Worcester Police Officers present at the rally. And while the officers quickly took Loy’s complaint, they responded that since they had not seen the assault happen they couldn’t put Mr. Cirignano under arrest. In fact it was only after the intervention of Ron Madnick, Executive Director of the Worcester ACLU Chapter that officers agreed to take statements from witnesses who had stepped forward. At first officers said they didn’t need to take statements, but faced with Madnick’s and witnesses’ persistence they did. It did not appear though that they spoke with any of the people that videotaped the assault.
The rally continued uninterrupted as Police took Cirignano off to the side to question him. He was unfazed and non-apologetic as he was interviewed and charged.
Rollbiz at BlueMassGroup gives his own account:
It wasn’t a bump or a jostle. Cirignano took her by the shoulders, with both hands, and shoved her to the ground. I saw it, and I don’t think there was any misinterpreting his intent. He meant to hurt her.
Ryan Adams and Live, Love, and Learn are others who’ve blogged about this.
Hi, I’m the Rollbiz mentioned above, and I just wanted to add that leading the gentleman leading the “Dumb broad deserved it!” charge is Lonnie Brennan, who unsuccessfully ran for State Rep. Lonnie was nice enough to provide his home phone on his campaign site, since he will move into obscurity I thought perhaps we could light up his house line and make him feel important for a bit!
Lonnie Brennan:
[Ed. note: I’m removing the number from this comment, but adding the link above, so we can at least give Mr. Brennan the opportunity to undo his mistake. Rollbiz, thanks much for both your comment and your post!]
What? “Dumb broad…?” Don’t know where you’re headed with this.
And, I don’t know why a seemingly intelligent young lady would push through a 3-4 deep crowd of a duly-license gathering to stand in front of a speaker. Nor do I know why I had to get shoved, pushed, and signs pressed into my back, when I strained to hear, barely, above yells and boos, the best speaker of the day: Chip Ford from the Citizens for Limited Taxation who addressed the crowd attempting to talk about the corruption of the citizen petition process.
I wish I could have heard all of what Mr. Ford had to say.
Strange tactics from the ‘opposition.’
And, Editor, if I spoke or commented unkindly about this lady who I think acted very poorly that day, well, I do truly apologize. As for those who called me names for taking videos of their shoutings, swearing, etc., well, the videos (posted on several sites as I shared with as many groups as would take it) speaks for itself. I had hoped for better peformance from Mr. Lang and his crew: object, but don’t swear, intimidate, etc. But, it was not to be.
In the words of his chant that day “It’s over, get over it, move on.” Fair enough. He won.
I was, a year later, glad to see the court trial end, and Larry C. acquitted.