Last Wednesday night, Moveon.org held simultaneous events in the Los Angeles area. The event in Hollywood was peaceful, but in Thousand Oaks, a suburb near the Ventura County line, an altercation ended with a man biting off the tip of another man’s finger.
When my friend Michael T. told me he was attending the event at Hollywood and Highland, I asked him to send photos from his cell phone, which he did and which are published above.
In an email, Mike said, “There wasn’t a great turnout — about 200 people. Everyone held signs of candles and stood on the curb at Highland and Hollywood and waved at passing cars. Lots of cars honked and it was okay but not great.”
Mike also said he had doubts Hollywood and Highland was the place to hold the vigil. He makes a good point. It’s the busiest intersection in Hollywood. On weekday evenings, the streets are jammed with commuters coming home from Burbank and the Valley, and the sidewalks are crammed with barhopping locals and tourists, intermingled with a standing army of unfortunates, many of whom are off their meds.
Given all this, when I first heard that a man’s fingertip was bitten off at a Moveon.org vigil, I assumed it was the one in Hollywood. It happened instead out in sleepy, dusty Thousand Oaks:
“It all started with their difference in philosophy over healthcare reform,” said Senior Deputy Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.
The incident occurred about 7 p.m. Wednesday at a “We Can’t Afford to Wait Vigil” organized by affiliates of the activist group MoveOn.org, which drew supporters of President Obama’s healthcare plan, Buschow said. The rally also attracted several counter-protesters, he said.
[Updated at 5 p.m.: During the rally … the suspect and William James Rice got into a heated argument and began fighting, Buschow said. Rice, of Newbury Park, punched the suspect after the man called him an “idiot,” Buschow said.
At that point, one man bit off the the tip of Rice’s left pinkie finger, Buschow said.
A Moveon.org spokesperson said, it was “a regrettable act of violence.”
“We’re still trying to figure out who was the aggressor,” Deputry Buschow told the Los Angeles Times.
