Protesters are again on the lawn and the front steps of the Michigan Capitol speaking out against Governor Whitmer’s executive orders for COVID-19.
“All the business owners watching on TV and Facebook, open your business now!” yelled one man, who got louder as he went on. “Open the restaurants, open the bars, open the movie theaters. I know we can’t control corporate America, but small business America needs to open up!”
This woman followed him and echoed his push to reopen everything without delay.
“We know how to wash hands and so does everybody else, right? So I figured, I mean, if we’re grown-up people and we know how to teach our kids how to wash hands and so do we, why can’t we just open up now and tell her to stick it? Open up the frickin’ businesses, tell her to stick it where the sun don’t shine, call for a recall or a vote of no confidence, get her ass out of the seat and let somebody else come in and do the job if she doesn’t want to,” she said. During her comments, right before urging a recall, a man in the crowd can be heard clearly calling for Governor Whitmer’s assassination by yelling “hang her!”
Today’s demonstration is the fourth large protest in Lansing since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Footage from several Michigan TV stations showed a mostly peaceful gathering, but there was an incident quickly condemned by the organizers of the protest that resulted in a physical altercation and a man being taken inside the Capitol by Michigan State Police. A man pulled out a nude doll with brown hair with a noose around her neck, immediately prompting those at the podium to call for police to respond. MLive reports no one was hurt in the ensuing scuffle and the man was apparently not arrested after being removed from the crowd of protesters.
This story has been updated with new information in the last paragraph. The skirmish was visible on livestreams from television stations, but it was not clear exactly what the man had done to elicit the response.
