An Unusual Physical Attack
Back in December of 2016, according to a Washington Post article, Dallas-based Kurt Eichenwald, a senior writer for Newsweek, was attacked physically. It was no ordinary attack. Eichenwald has epilepsy, which can be triggered by a strobe light. The attacker used a tweet, which had a flashing GIF. It also, included the message
“YOU DESERVE A SEIZURE FOR YOUR POSTS.”
The article goes on,
Immediately after viewing the GIF, Eichenwald had an epileptic seizure that lasted for “approximately eight minutes,” during which he experienced “a complete loss of his bodily functions and mental faculty,” court documents state. Those impairments lasted, in some form, for several months.
“It was a very serious seizure,” Eichenwald’s lawyer, Steven Lieberman, told The Post. He said Eichenwald was “almost fully incapacitated for several days” and also had difficulty speaking for a period of time after the episode.
According the The Dallas Morning News, after Eichenwald’s wife found him during the seizure, she photographed the tweet and sent it to police. Authorities traced it to Trump-supporter John Rayne Rivello and booked him into Dallas County Jail.
Authorities found a number of direct messages on the account that made reference to Eichenwald, according to a criminal complaint against Rivello. "I hope this sends him into a seizure" and "let's see if he dies," two read.
There were other hateful tweets too with anti-Semitic connotations. Eichenwald is Jewish.
Eichenwald Is Finally Getting Justice
The great news is that the bigot will plead guilty. Yesterday morning, Eichenwald tweeted out the great news in 2 tweets.
1. I've been notified the anti-semite who used a strobe to trigger an epileptic seizure in me has agreed to plead guilty to aggravated assault with bodily injury on Monday, 12/16. This would be 1st time an alt-righter will plead to felony assault on a political journalist..(1/2)
Prosecutors know alt-righters plans to escalate online attacks against the epilepsy community. They laughed at your "sophisticated" strategies to hide your identities. Meaning: Those who launched widescale attack last month against the community may be next charged. Back off.
Let’s hope more of these bigoted people are rounded up and charged. It’s clear that our epileptic community is under attack, too.
A Great Trend
This guilty plea is part of a growing list of other recent, successful court cases, including lawsuits, against bigots, such as Taylor Dumpson’s $725,000 win against neo-Nazi website because of her race and gender. Hopefully, Eichenwald sues his attacker and receives damages, too.
The only way to stop this is to make people account for their appalling behavior.