RedState has a video of what Lauren Valle was doing before the assault, which RedState seems to think justifies a bunch of thugs assaulting her. Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Here it is:
About 17 seconds into the video, you can make out Valle, in a red hoodie and blond wig, approaching Rand’s car and holding up her sign in front of the car window. By 19 seconds into the video, you can see that some guys had surrounded her and gotten her away from the car. Then, in the video, that sequence is enlarged and repeated twice, so that after we’ve watched it the third time Valle has been pulled away from the car by the 32 second mark. Another 20 seconds or so goes by before we see Paul getting out of the car.
If you stop the video at exactly 55 seconds, you can see that Paul is just getting out of his car, and there’s a blond woman in a red top, carrying a cardboard sign, standing in front of the car. She’s several feet away. I believe Valle’s story is that some guys chased her around the front of the car and then assaulted her. I can’t tell if she is being chased around the front of the car, but I believe that is her, and she is definitely in front of the car. I’ll try to get a screen capture to show it better.
[Update: I watched it again, and if you keep your eyes at the top of the screen from about 50 seconds on, you clearly see Valle running in front of the car, and she doesn’t seem to be running toward Rand Paul. And you can make out what appears to be Pezzano, with his “don’t tread on me” button, chasing her.]
This video follows Paul and doesn’t show the assault, but we know from watching other videos that the assault begins about the time Paul had completely emerged from the car, which was just a second or two after what we see at the 55 second mark.
If anything, this video shows us that the assault had nothing to do with protecting Rand Paul. The goons assaulted her because they knew she was there to somehow ridicule their candidate, and they were angry.
In the earlier sequence, the one repeated three times, it appears the men who moved her away from the car used only enough force to do so. Basically, it appears some guy in a suit got between her and the car and shoved her away. I don’t have an issue with that.
However, this video corroborates that Valle was several feet away from Rand Paul when the assault began. So even if she were making another attempt to approach Rand Paul — the video doesn’t show her at this point — she was still some distance away from him, and Profitt and Pezzano could have just gotten between her and Paul and blocked her. Manhandling her to the ground and stepping on her clearly was uncalled for.
Update: I can’t believe I’m spending time on this, but I think it needs to be done, somehow — he’s another video showing Paul getting out of the car, and then the camera swings over to show the assault.
Now, I’ve looked at the “Paul getting out of the car” sequence in the first video above (which begins with someone opening the car door for Paul at about the 48 second mark), and compared it to the “Paul getting out of the car” sequence at the beginning of this second video. They are from different angles, and our view of Paul is blocked for a time in the second video. But the assault on Vale is going on while Paul is completely out of the car and walking away from the car, so that would have been just after we see someone who seems to be Valle standing in front of the car.
Here’s the screen capture:
So it appears that, one way or another, she was jumped and assaulted while she was several feet away from Rand Paul, probably less than five seconds after we see what seems to be her standing in front of the car.
Take a look and tell me what you think.
Update: See also No More Mr. Nice Blog.