Assault charges have been filed against Derek Warriner, an executive officer with the Union County, South Carolina Democratic Party, for spitting on a protester at a Pride event held in Crossing Paths Park.
Brian Talbert says that at about 2:30 in the afternoon of 11 October, Mr. Warriner exited the Pride event, walked straight toward him, and spit at him in the presence of law enforcement officers. “He didn’t even say a word after that.”
The spitter was a complete stranger. “I had never met him before,” Mr. Talbert tells The Distance. “The first time I saw him was when he spit on me.” Alert for threats, Mr. Talbert says he was already taking a step back and blocked the spit with his sign.
Mr. Talbert says that he complained immediately to a deputy. “The spit was still rolling down my sign” as “I pointed out who had done it”, he says. When the deputy was reluctant to act, “I said, ‘So if I go and spit on one of their signs, I’m not going to be arrested, correct?’ He never said a word.”
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