French Quarter Attack on Jindal Aide (Updated)
[Guest post by DRJ]
Have you heard about last week’s French Quarter attack on Bobby Jindal campaign director Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend, Joe Brown? From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:
“The three to five men who attacked Gov. Bobby Jindal’s campaign finance director and her boyfriend after a Louisiana Republican Party fund-raiser in the French Quarter last Friday shouted obscenities at the couple and made reference to the fact they were nicely dressed, but made no political comments or other statements, according to a report released today by the New Orleans Police Department.
Allee Bautsch suffered a broken leg and her boyfriend, Joe Brown, got a concussion and a fractured nose and a fractured jaw in the incident.”
[EDIT: The police report is here.]
However, some bloggers and friends of the victims think there is more to the story. Early reports claimed the couple were attacked because they were wearing Palin pins or for other political reasons. Yahoo News also surveyed the conflicting reports.
The Hayride seems to have the most comprehensive look at this story, including reports of demonstrations and “overheated rhetoric” by left-wing Communist-anarchists in the area prior to this incident. Read the whole thing and, like me, I bet you’ll want to know more about francisnblake and the Iron Rail Book Collective.
— DRJ
UPDATE — Via an update at The Hayride, Bautsch and Brown weren’t the only ones threatened last Friday:
“In an interview this afternoon, Louisiana GOP Chair Roger Villere, Jr. told Lincoln Parish News Online he and several others were pursued by protesters last Friday night after a political fundraiser, but managed to get into a cab and avoid the mob. “We started to leave out the front door after the event, but the protesters had us blocked – there were six of us in our group – so we went out through the kitchen,” Villere said. Once they got outside, the protesters spotted them and began to pursue them, but they managed to get into a cab and avoid confrontation.
Later in the evening Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown were brutally beaten on the sidewalk outside the Louisiana State Supreme Court building, mere steps away from where protests had taken place.
Villere hosted the fund-raising event last Friday night in a French Quarter restaurant that was attended by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and Texas Governor Rick Perry.”
UPDATE 2: Fox News reports that Bautsch was stomped on and her leg was broken in 4 places. Also from the interview of Bautsch’s mother:
“KELLY: When you say that derogatory statements were made to them, what do you mean?
BURNING: I don’t want to… it’s easy to mislead the investigation… but I don’t want to get into the political ramifications of them but things were said to my daughter and to her boyfriend that basically everything was about money. From the time they were walking out of the restaurant things were being said to them.
KELLY: Was your daughter robbed? Was she and her boyfriend robbed?
BURNING: No. They were not robbed. She was robbed after, actually, after whoever did this to her, when she was screaming on the ground and the men who did this to her ran off, her purse was stolen.”
What part of Jindal’s statement was unconvincing?
Fox News:
steve (4be49f) — 4/16/2010 @ 2:49 pmFox News:
steve (4be49f) — 4/16/2010 @ 2:51 pmsteve, I read your link, and it sounds like someone refusing to even go into the fact there was a partisan motivation… and the refusals are obviously based on the fact that she knows partisan comments were made during the attack. That why, when asked what was said, she notes she won’t let partisanship into this.
So it’s absolutely no refutation of the many accounts that point out the partisan nature of this attack.
Peaceable liberals have nothing to be ashamed of… but it’s sick how any little thing is twisted to smear the right, and the right is too honorable to let thugs intrude into our political discussion.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:02 pmBut to advance the meme based on “some bloggers and friends of the victims” requires at least a cursory acknowledgment of the official Jindal line.
steve (4be49f) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:07 pmsteve,
I led with the Times-Picayune story on the official police report that dismisses any political motivation, so I did far more than the “cursory acknowledgment” you say I didn’t do. But tell me: Why are you willing to disregard contrary statements by friends as well as the information about earlier demonstrations documented by The Haymaker blog? And don’t you find it curious the couple were beaten and stomped but nothing was stolen?
DRJ (09fa6c) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:16 pmNot a political attack my a**. These people weren’t attending a basket weaving event, they were attending a political event that the anti-american socialist democrats didn’t like. Find the suckers and put them in front of a firing squad. Millions of other democrat criminals would crawl back in the sewage pool.
Scrapiron (996c34) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:22 pm“steve” obviously believes the perps were racist “tea klaners”… he needs to go back to his “coffee party” meeting for a new set of talking points.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:23 pmI spend a lot of time in NO and the thing that seemed strange from the beginning was that it was a pretty bad beating but no guns were involved and robbery was apparently not a motive.
Shootings are common in NO (there was a shooting at the McDonalds on Canal Street the other day) but I’ve never been in fear of getting beat up in the FQ at any time of day or night. Innocent bystanders get caught in crossfire of shootings but they don’t get a leg broken in 5 places.
That flier announcing the fundraiser posted on The Hayride and the others that just escaped an attack is strong evidence that the perps knew who they were going after. This attack has political written all over it.
MU789 (25b69d) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:52 pmNew Orleans is very dangerous and crimey.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 4/16/2010 @ 3:58 pmIf and when these MotherTruthers are apprehended, I wager that we’ll find that they are members of groups that gather to protest WTO conclaves.
AD - RtR/OS! (f9a039) — 4/16/2010 @ 4:01 pmIt’s like AstroWorld was but you can’t just tear New Orleans down.
Apparently.
happyfeet (71f55e) — 4/16/2010 @ 4:08 pmThe official police report does not “dismiss any political motivation,” it fails to mention one.
Sorry, the Jindal statement is required reading in fully evaluating the events at Royal and St. Louis. The report indicates her purse was stolen, though apparently not by the initial attackers.
steve (7b3800) — 4/16/2010 @ 4:09 pmsteve,
Everything you’ve pointed out is set forth in the links. This looks like the work of an anarchy group. Some people might not consider that politically motivated in the traditional right-vs-left sense. How would you classify it?
DRJ (09fa6c) — 4/16/2010 @ 4:30 pmYou know, it’s kinda amazing how some people instinctively cherry pick.
Steve shouldn’t do that. these people were attacked for their politics. That someone says they don’t want to get into the political implications, when asked what statements were made, really doesn’t contradict the other statements.
The police are ignoring this aspect in their reports… that’s not really relevant to what happened. I’m happy to wait and see, but this was a sickening attack either way, and yeah, some lefties do get violent… and it seems to happen far more often from the left than the right despite some lefties, such as Charles Johnson constantly pretending the opposite is the case.
And really, I think that’s the value in reporting the potential or proven attacks from insane liberals… to silence the claims the right must apologize for kooks that probably don’t even exist.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 4/16/2010 @ 4:37 pmI’ve been to New Orleans a couple of times and day or night there are groups of feral teenagers around the French Quarter looking to have a wilding.
nk (db4a41) — 4/16/2010 @ 4:47 pmYou could be right, nk, but this Denver incident sounds more like a wilding than what happened in New Orleans.
DRJ (09fa6c) — 4/16/2010 @ 6:43 pmnk, I’ve been going to NO since before the Superdome was built. I’ve been in the FQ at all times night and day and except for some stray gunfire the biggest danger is discovering that the good looking chick at the bar has some extra equipment.
I wouldn’t go past Rampart at night. But I’ve walked at night as far as Washington Square to the north and Lee Circle to the south and never worried about any gangs.
Anyone not looking at a political angle to this attack is being willfully blind. Their attackers didn’t rob them and unless it was payback shooting like the one at McDonald’s that doesn’t happen.
MU789 (25b69d) — 4/16/2010 @ 7:51 pmI see no reason to ever go to La. The entire state is populated by slugs and criminals. Better that another storm wash it out to sea.
Scrapiron (996c34) — 4/16/2010 @ 8:14 pmIt is interesting to me that because the boyfriend is not actually gay, the above words do not constitute evidence of a hate crime.
But if he were, they would.
The lesson to me is: people who are doing hateful things say the most angry things they can think of.
MayBee (48e17d) — 4/17/2010 @ 12:06 amI’m not sure what others might take from it. But I think it’s important to recognize what was said here, and what was actually behind the attack.
if either of the victims had been armed, we’d know who the attackers were. 😀
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/17/2010 @ 1:00 amAnarchists.
Andrew (057d27) — 4/17/2010 @ 1:11 amwent to a fundraiser last Friderday night didn’t get laid got in a fight uh huh it ain’t no big thang except for now my leg’s broke and we got verbally aboosed and is there any justice no there ain’t no justice.
New Orleans. Here there be monsters.
happyfeet (c8caab) — 4/17/2010 @ 11:32 amThat’s very callous, don’t you think feets, but their is a very “Heart of Darkness” feel to the place
ian cormac (422538) — 4/17/2010 @ 11:43 amyou always think I’m callous
This story is leavened with a healthy amount of jeez where did you people think you were anyway Disneyland?
happyfeet (c8caab) — 4/17/2010 @ 11:57 am