A male Rhode Island police officer running for the U.S. Senate physically assaulted his political opponent at an abortion rally, she said.
Providence police said on Saturday that they had left Cop Jean Lugo on paid administrative leave as she had launched a criminal investigation into the alleged attack on Friday night, which was filmed on video.
Courtesy of Bill Bartholomewtown – The Bartholomewtown Podcast
Lugo, who ran for Senate 29 in the Senate as a Republican, dropped out of the race on Saturday afternoon. “I will not apply for any office this fall,” he wrote on Twitter before temporarily deactivating his account.
Jen Rourke, a progressive candidate for the same position who describes herself as an organizer of reproductive rights, said Lugo “violently attacked me” after her speech at a rally in front of the state building in Providence after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Rowe against Wade.
“This is to be a black woman running for office. I will not give up,” Rourke wrote in a tweet that included a video clip of the incident.
The five-second clip, shot by Bill Bartholomewtown, a local journalist who hosts The Bartholomewtown Podcast, appears to show a man punching a woman twice in the head, at least one of which is related to the target.
Rourke went to a hospital in Kent, Rhode Island, on Saturday for a CT scan, a campaign spokesman told CNBC.
The Providence Police Department tweeted on Saturday that it was “investigating the criminal behavior of a police officer who was not on duty last night during a protest in which a woman was attacked.”
The employee, later explicitly identified as Lugo, was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the inspection, the department said. A department spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Before dropping out of the race for the US Senate, Lugo sent a statement to CNBC, which seems to be defending his actions, without denying that he hit Rourke.
“As an officer who has sworn to protect and serve our communities, I have unfortunately found myself in a situation where no one should be seen. “I intervened to protect someone who was attacked by a group of agitators,” Lugo said in a statement. “At the moment, there is an upcoming internal investigation, and as the facts of the incident come to light, I want my family and I to have confidentiality.
Bartholomew, in an interview with CNBC, said about 1,000 people attended the rally to protest the Supreme Court ruling, which on Friday morning shattered legal precedents that had protected federal abortion rights for nearly 50 years.
About 10 members of a right-wing group known as the Freedom Fighters also appeared at the event, Bartholomew said. One of those members who was filming seemed to be pushing some members of the crowd. After being asked to leave, the man refused at first, then began to walk away – but when he turned back to the crowd, someone punched him in the face and stepped on him, Bartholomew said. “A fight ensued,” said a local journalist, who saw Rourke punched in the face.
At the time, neither Lugo nor other members of the mob, who were allegedly involved in the violence, were arrested, Bartholomew said.
Rourke, in a statement to CNBC from his campaign, said he “de-escalated the situation and the counter-protester left when the quarrel began.”
“I was attacked as a result,” she said.
“That’s what it’s like to be a black woman running for office. All over the country, people like me are threatened or attacked when they run. “I will not stop fighting – for reproductive rights, for people in my area or for people like me who want to run for office,” Rourke said.
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