A protester from the left-wing group Indivisible OC knocked a 71-year-old woman unconscious on Tuesday, according to a CBS Los Angeles report. The victim, Kathleen Staunton, works as district director for Republican state representative Dana Rohrabacher out of the representative's Huntington Beach office. Rohrabacher said that Staunton's door was yanked open in front of her by a protester as she attempted to use the restroom, causing her to fall, strike her head, and lose consciousness.
In a statement, Rohrabacher said that he is “outraged beyond words that protesters who mobbed my Huntington Beach office violently knocked down my faithful district director, Kathleen Staunton, causing her to be hospitalized.”
Protest group denies responsibility
The incident was the result of a protest organized by Indivisible OC, an extremist group from Orange County which states that its mission is to "resist the Trump agenda." The protest group downplayed the seriousness of the assault, claiming that they were merely handing out Valentine's Day cards.
However, the protest group posted a picture of the purported "Valentine's Day card" on its Twitter page, and whether the card was a friendly gesture or a veiled threat is open to interpretation.
The card reads: "Roses are red, your district is blue. We request a town hall or a new rep might do."
Rohrabacher confirmed to CBS Los Angeles that the Indivisible OC group had stormed his Huntington Beach office "demanding" a town hall meeting, and that the protesters grew agitated when they were informed that Rohrabacher was at work in Washington D.C. with the House of Representatives in session.
Rohrabacher compares protesters to mob
"Deliberate or not, the incident came as part of a mob action that not only intimidates but coerces," stated Rohrabacher. "Though the protesters think of themselves as idealists, they engaged in political thuggery, pure and simple.” No criminal charges have been filed in the incident.
Ironically, Staunton's hospitalization marks the third high-profile incident since Trump's inauguration in which bodily harm was inflicted upon a female by the same "Resistance" protesters who accuse President Trump of sexism and misogyny. On January 21, conservative journalist Sheila Gunn Reid was struck in the face by a male protester, Dion Bews, during a women's march in Canada. During the UC Berkeley riots, a female supporter of conservative firebrand Milo Yiannopoulis, who was slated to speak at the school, was pepper-sprayed in the face while giving a live interview to a news reporter.