Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III said he won’t file criminal charges after reviewing unedited video showing events that led to a Fox News contributor being punched during December’s right-to-work demonstrations.
Steven Crowder filed a police report following the Dec. 11 incident at the Capitol, which Michigan State Police had referred to Dunnings’ office for review. The fight occurred amid generally peaceful demonstrations involving more than 10,000 people who had gathered in Lansing that day as lawmakers voted on a package of bills that ban requiring union dues as a condition of employment.
Dunnings said today the first video his office reviewed had been edited. After reviewing an unedited clip, he decided to not pursue the case.
“It’s pretty clear the person that they wanted to charge was acting in self-defense,” Dunnings said of the union member who apparently slugged Crowder.
Crowder posted a heavily edited video of the altercation, which made it seem as if he’d been attacked out of the blue by Fox News patented “union thugs.” Needless to say, Crowder accompanied the video with a pocketful of victim cards. But a second, less dishonest video completely undermined his story.
Crowder said on Twitter later day that he suffered a minor cut to the forehead and a chipped tooth after being “sucker-punched” four times.However, unedited footage shows that the union member who apparently punched Crowder appeared to have been pushed to the ground seconds before the brawl.
It’s unclear who pushed the union member. Crowder was standing nearby and appears to throw his hands up in the air in a gesture of innocence after the man fell, the video shows.
If you see someone fall over, you don’t immediately claim you’re innocent unless you’re not. He might as well have shouted, “Wasn’t me!” He also provided the prosecutor with the dishonestly-edited version of the incident, which you would only do if you had something to hide. Both videos are at the link.
If you ever thought that maybe Fox News wasn’t really a propaganda outfit, that they were simply a conservative-leaning network in a mirror opposite mold of MSNBC, you can disabuse yourself of those notions. This “news” outfit was actively engaged in making pro-union people look bad, by trying (and succeeding) to incite them to violence. By all appearances, Crowder attacked a man to get him to take a swing at him.
One thing’s for sure, you’re probably not going to see this story on Fox News
