Tucson shooting victim threatens Tea Party official: You’re Dead. Newsbusters: Man appears on leftist “Democracy Now”
If the threat wasn’t so serious, the irony would be stunning. Maybe stunning is the wrong word. For days (and it still continues), the left has been desperately trying to link the Tucson shooter “lefty” Jared Loughner to the right. But once again, the vitriol, no make that “death threats” come from the left, not the right. Perhaps we can blame Eric Fuller’s death threat on the screaming from the main stream media?
If it’s a new tone that the left is seeking, my guess is they mean the right should just sit down and shut up, or else. On yesterday’s “This Week” special town hall on the Tucson shooting, Arizona Tea Party official Trent Humphries was asked to make a statement at the end of the hour. As Humphries made a plea to look at mental health issues in the counry, and not just “gun control”, shooting victim Eric Fuller speaks up and says “You’re dead.” More on Fuller in a moment. The threat comes at the 50 second mark. It’s easily heard. I caught it and it clearly throws Humphries off his remarks. Fuller then can be heard in the background saying something else, but also threw Humphries as he tried to continue.
My neighbor is one of those people. And — and I loved that man. [Fuller: “You’re dead”]And — and I want to see — I want to see some introspection maybe from the people before the national debate happens. You know, and those — and — and it’s very well to have those things. But something’s going to have to happen with — with everybody.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p7EL1Af2oY
Fuller was arrested after the Town Hall Meeting, as police encouraged Humphries to file charges against Fuller for safety reasons. From the AP report:
Fuller was arrested on misdemeanor disorderly conduct and threat charges, Ogan said. While Fuller was being escorted out, deputies decided he needed a mental health evaluation and he was taken to a hospital, where he remained Saturday evening.
The hospital will determine when he will be released, Ogan said.
But as Newsbusters reports, Christiane Amanpour fails to mention the actual threat from their summary at the end of the Town Hall. Transcript at the link.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_T76Mzup1A
So who is Fuller? Well, as Newsbusters reports he was one of the victims in last weeks shooting … but he also has been quite vocal since then, appearing Friday on the lefty program … “Democracy Now”.
Three of the results appearing on the first page of a Google Web Search on [“Eric Fuller” Tucson] (typed as indicated between brackets) are Friday items about an interview Fuller did on the far-left “Democracy Now!” program on that same day. One is at the Politico, which would seem to eliminate lack of knowledge as an AP excuse.
Appearing on a lefty program does not make one a lefty, just as calling my show doesn’t make one a small “l” libertarian. Clearly Fuller was angry and looking to place blame for the shooting that made him a victim as well. Still I would expect, like Newsbusters, given the charges that are still flying from the left toward the right, the media would do a better job of reporting on just who Fuller is. Add it all up, and as Ed Morrissey notes, the irony is palpable, but also cautions readers not to jump to demonize.
This is an ironic turn after a week in which conservatives were accused of causing the shooting through supposedly “extreme rhetoric,” but people should resist the temptation to turn Fuller into some sort of poster boy of the Left in response. He was one of the victims of the January 8th attack, and that would be enough to make anyone angry enough to act a little irrationally in the immediate aftermath. Hopefully the psychiatric screening will prompt Fuller to seek counseling, or his family to insist on it. If this week taught us anything, it’s the danger of knee-jerk demonization for political pointscoring. We have been praying for all of the victims, and we’ll continue to do so for healing to those wounded, including Fuller.
Once again, the issue here is not so much Fuller’s political leanings or even his anger, it is his mental health. We pointed this out one week ago. Fuller does need evaluation and Loughlin needed serious mental health care. As long as we keep dismissing this as “just anger” , or crazy, looney, nuts, bananas, wacko, or the other despicable terms used to describe mentally ill people, these kind of incidents will continue.
UPDATE: It would appear Fuller’s incarceration is well timed. I missed this from the NBC report.
KGUN reported that Fuller took exception to comments by Republican state Rep. Terri Proud and Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.
Fuller was in the front row and apparently became upset when Humphries suggested that any conversations about gun control should be delayed until all the dead were buried, KGUN reported.
Fuller took a picture of Humphries and shouted, “You’re dead.”
Some media reports said Fuller kept booing and making other remarks before deputies escorted him from the church.
If you listen once again to the first video Humphries was talking about taking time to mourn before we begin passing legislation and I am not sure what could be called “offensive” about that. And as we point out … you can hear another comment shouted shortly after the “You’re dead” line. Taking a picture of Humphries would indicate that Fuller meant business and in my opinion made his arrest imperative.
13 Comments
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Jim, you are easily stunned.
His arrest was imperative and the psych evaluation is, as well. Anyone who takes a photograph of someone they're leveling a death threat against is unsound of mind and should probably work through their violent rage with help of a therapist. The angry rhetoric from the left since the Tucson shootings is not helping in the least.
I will repeat what I have been saying for quite a number of years now: the American system has abrogated its responsibility to the mentally ill and to society itself regarding cases of such illness. They will very often come back to haunt us in ways like what we have just seen. The shooter's ex-GF thinks he's faking it. I don't think it should matter: if you are showing signs of serious mental illness and a mental health professional will sign a statement saying so, you should be institutionalized at no charge, just like we used to be able to do fifty years ago.
One of the articles I read about Fuller stated he was shot in the leg and back and drove himself to the hospital. For me, that begs the question, was he actually shot at the event, or was he even shot at all? I'm glad to see him arrested and given a psych evaluation. It's important to take ACTUAL threats from lefties seriously given their well-documented history of ACTUAL violence.
Hi Jim! :)=^..^=
Had to shorten the title for the Free Republic URL posting to get accepted, but it is on Free Repbublic. Here it is:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2658225/…
The sad reality is that the same left that led the movement to "close" the hospitals that had treated those with mental illness, it is now the same left that is blaming the right by "projecting" this blood libel.
If Fuller's actions warrant involuntary psych evaluation, they'd have a field day at a kiddie soccer or little league game. There's enough threatening and venom in the first ten minutes to fill a Greyhound bus and send it on its way to the rubber room (to coaches, officials and even other parents).
America: grow a pair.
"Acting a little irrationally" or temporary insanity, or whatever, the person is still presumed to be dangerous, particularly in the delicate time following a attempt on a group of people and a congress person. It is not an excuse.
Ever notice that the bulk of the "irrationality" falls to the left? I cite the anarchist riots surrounding any G8, G20 meeting, or any attempt to rein in the government umbilical cords that the lefties thrive on, like subsidized college etc?
So let me get this straight: when Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, claimed that he was called a "ni–er" at a Tea Party protest, with absolutely no corroborating evidence (even with a $100K reward from Andrew Breitbart for such), the lefty media went absolutely nuts, running the accusation on every broadcast they could, but a clearly vocalized threat by a lefty to a Tea Party member, on tape, followed up by an arrest and psych evaluation, doesn't warrant a blip on the radar? (not to mention the fact that Loughner was a lefty)????
Nothing to see here. Move along folks…
My, my, my — as Reagan would say…..
I say and have said – Progressive liberal leftism is a mental disorder; when you have leaned so far to the left that living without freedom looks real good to you, the real world is out of your site and your world is not real, a non- normal mental state, hence a mental disorder is the problem here and we need to address it; accountability would be a good start. Perhaps, seeing each shall be held accountable may prove for some to be a turning point, not all, but we live in the real world where we know we can help some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time.
It's <a title="Sarcastic Blog on Palin?" href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6226442/james_eric_fuller_the_lamestream_media.html?cat=9" rel="nofollow">Sarah Palin's fault for <a title="Huffington Posts Prophesy" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/14/eric-fuller-tucson-palin-beck-angle_n_809309.html" rel="nofollow">Mr. Fuller's threat.
It never ends. It will never end.
Death threats from the left will be ignored by the media. Physical assalts from the left will be blamed on the victims. Reference the elderly man in CA who had his finger bitten off by a code pink thug, or the young black man that was beaten and kicked in the head by SEIU thugs.
The left projects what is wants to do to us onto the likes of George Bush and Sarah Palin. They demonize, they hate, they instigate violence. I recall books and movies being made on the assassination of George W. Bush. I even remember reports of cheers breaking out in california high school class rooms when the reports of the shooting of Ronald Reagan took place.
The left is violent. The left is hate filled. The left is intolerant of dissent. Do not for one moment think that they wish to live in a peacefilled society. They want class warfare. They want race warfare. They want america impovershed and emasculated. The right wishes to let each of us rise up to the best that we can be. The left wants to beat down all nails whose heads stick up above the rest. The right wants equality of opportunity, not a guarenty of outcomes. The left wants every one to be equally miserable.
We have become a nation that is about 40% in favor of the fascist left. About 40% in favor of the rightous right, and about 20% too stupid to see a difference. Perhaps what we should do is divide the country. Give the Left the seft coast and everything on the east coast from maryland north. Give them Illinois, and detroit. Let us have the rest. I fear that they have become so irrational, so violent, so despotic, that we cannot live in peace with them.
I truely fear for the republic.
I can't believe Tim-in-Alabama would take issue with Fuller driving himself to the hospital…. Ed Rendell is right; we are becoming a nation of wusses! Teddy Roosevelt got shot in the middle of a speech- he finished the speech and then joked that it would take more than that to kill a Bull Moose. And he was shot by a lefty!