Video: Protesters Threaten Tatler Editor on Last Night of GOP Convention (Update from Bryan)

Paul Ryan was right: it all comes down to math: A distaff member of Occupy Wall Street (or perhaps Occupy Tampa?) has learned how to count to two.

Update (Bryan): Thank you, Ed, for getting these posted so quickly.

I shot both clips with my iPhone after the conclusion of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech. Chris Salcedo and I were walking down Ashley Street in Tampa when we encountered the large occupier/anarchist protest that was blocking the streets outside the security perimeter near the convention center. Police lined both sides of the street two or three deep in places, and were making sure that the occupiers only occupied the street and could not get up onto the sidewalks or into the buildings. Mounted police held a very stout security line where the media checkpoint had been all week. The police were diverting conventioneers around the back of the Sheraton that sits on the corner, taking us away from the protest and away from my car, which was parked in a garage down the street.

Chris and I came up onto the scene, and told the police officers that we were media and wished to cover the protest and also get to our transportation. The police obliged and we walked down the sidewalk.

It’s next to impossible to make out, but in the first clip there was a woman and man pair who spotted me and watched me as I walked by. Whether they were mugging for the camera or not I don’t know, but they both directly threatened me. The woman pointed directly at me and said, “We’re coming after you.” The man then followed suit and said the same thing. But for the fact that the police officers were between us, I have little doubt that they would have tried to start something. And all I was doing was walking by and capturing the scene on my camera in my role as media.

In the second part of the clip, as Ed noted, the woman featured there seems to have forgotten that she has 10 fingers instead of just the two that she flung around at the world.

In other words, these people are animals. They were there in Tampa to mar the RNC and to try and start a violent reaction.

Now, the clips don’t say much more than what I’ve said above, but here’s a real kicker: The Obama Department of Justice was caught on tape earlier, helping the occupiers right here in Tampa.

I find that both very interesting and deeply disturbing. If we had a Congress that wasn’t in the grip of the Reid faction in the Senate, there might be an investigation of why the government appeared to be playing both sides of the convention protest, keeping the peace on the one hand while also disturbing the peace on the other.