Steven Crowder, tough guy-victim-martyr of the far right.
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New York Times, the Michigan State Police are dubious about Fox News contributor Steven Crowder's tales of being punched by a union member at Tuesday's protests in Michigan. After all, Crowder says he has evidence of blatant assault on video, yet he hasn't asked to have it investigated. Why might that be?
TPM's Evan McMorris-Santoro spoke with Inspector Gene Adamczyk of the Michigan State Police. Regarding Crowder's desire to have an MMA rematch with the man in question,
“You can’t leverage the law for personal gain,” [Adamczyk] said. “Either you’re the victim, or you’re not. So if he’s the victim of an assault, and he wants to file a complaint, we will definitely investigate it.”
Further:
He stressed that the MSP will not go forward with an investigation unless a crime is reported, and “there are all types of personal reasons” people sometimes don’t report a crime, he said.
“If somebody broke into your house, wouldn’t you immediately report it to the police? If someone assaulted you or your family member wouldn’t you report it immediately to the police?” Adamczyk said. “Well, why wouldn’t you, unless there’s a personal agenda there.”
Or unless the raw footage that went into your heavily edited video would show that you or one of your friends threw the first punch. And since Crowder is pushing this story not just to distract from the real issues in Michigan Republicans' attack on unions and workers and the giant protest against it, but to raise his own profile and make himself look like the tough guy-victim-martyr of the far right, there are a lot of reasons not to want a police investigation putting potentially inconvenient facts on the record.
9:09 AM PT: And after widespread coverage of his non-report to the police, and the police themselves questioning why he wasn't doing so, Steven Crowder has finally asked the police to investigate. Let's hope that investigation includes all of Crowder's video of the incident.
