A Canadian man is facing charges stemming from a violent incident that occurred at a political rally in Edmonton in support of the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday. Edmonton police say they received a complaint of an assault at the Alberta Legislature grounds on Saturday. They charged Jason Dion Bews, 34, with assault and uttering threats on Tuesday.
The complainant, Sheila Gunn Reid, is a reporter for the conservative Canadian media outlet Rebel Media. She claims Bews shoved her camera into her face when she was attempting to interview him.
In a video posted on YouTube, Reid explained that she had approached a group of protesters because they were shouting at a group of counter-protesters who were singing “O Canada,” the Canadian national anthem. As she closed in to ask questions, Bews told her to go away and threatened to break her camera. The video shows him forcefully punching the camera, which Reid says she was standing behind as she peered through the viewfinder.
“He just hit me in the face!” Reid can be heard exclaiming on the video. She attempted to follow the man, but the “feminist” women at the women’s-rights rally actually cleared a path to allow Bews to scurry away. A female bystander can be heard telling Reid: “You deserve to be angry. … We need to [ensure] nothing more happens. … I’m pushing [the man] away.”
Reid exclaimed, “You feminist! That guy just hit me in the face!” Another woman in the crowd said “you are the problem, not the solution,” to which Reid cried, “I’m the problem, you victim-blamer? He punched me in the face!”
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