Punch to the Face Heralds New Era of Political Violence in Emeryville

Tattler Editor Physically Assaulted by John Bauters’ Supporter 

Emeryville's Children's Harvest Festival Site of Political Violence

Unprovoked Attack Draws Yawns From Team Bauters

Commentry

By Brian Donahue

A friend and supporter of candidate for political office John Bauters, assaulted me without provocation last week as I was asking Mr Bauters a question at an Emeryville public event.  The assault came in the form of a punch to the face because the Tattler has been covering Councilman Bauters’ campaign for Alameda County Supervisor and the assailant doesn’t like the news the Tattler has been reporting.  It is the first example of political violence we know of in modern Emeryville history.

The Incident

Please review the video of the incident below.

Mr Bauters set up a tent to talk to voters and distribute campaign literature at Emeryville’s annual Harvest Festival at Huchiun Park on Sherwin Street October 5th.  The punch came less than one minute after I sat down to ask the Councilman a question for a potential Tattler story.  I wanted to ask him why, at an earlier public event in Berkeley, he had called his colleague on the City Council, Kalimah Priforce, a name that involves an expletive (he called him a “shitbag liar”).  

At first, Bauters said he didn’t recall calling Council member Priforce a name, and so I realized I needed to use the actual profanity, to jog his memory.   Because a man, the assailant with two young children, was standing under the Bauters tent and within earshot, I turned to him and told him I was going to quote back the profanity to Mr Bauters and for the sake of his children, I would give him ample time to move a few feet away for five seconds.  The assailant told me not to use the word in front of his children and he didn’t step away.  He told me I had to censor my speech.  I told him NO and I reminded him he could step back for a moment but instead, he menacingly ordered me to “stand up”.  I stood up and turned the camera to the man and told him his children were not in the camera frame.  Bauters, realizing his friend was about to turn to violence, called him by his first name and told him not to do it.  But his friend was not controllable.   He set down his child from his shoulders and punched me in the face.  I saw the punch coming and blocked it, turning it into a glancing blow but the kinetic force was enough to drive me backwards into my chair, which flipped over.  Then I tripped backwards over the chair and landed on the asphalt on my elbow, injuring it.

Writhing in pain on the ground and tangled up in the chair, the assailant verbally taunted me in front of his children he was seconds before trying to protect against hearing profanity, “Did that fucking hurt?” he said to me.   Because I did not defend myself against the small, 5’-9”, 150 pound man’s attack, there was no more violence.  Council member Bauters, who was standing six feet from me, did not offer me any assistance or help me to my feet, nor did any other of his political supporters standing or sitting under the tent.  The assailant did not apologize for his actions. 

The police were summoned as well as an ambulance.  The Emeryville police viewed the video and I pressed charges on the assailant who will appear before an Alameda County judge in December.  I was treated by medical EMTs.  My elbow is still injured.      

                                  

The Assailant

The Assailant 
Private school director.
He believes his calling is to treat
people with "respect and kindness".

The assailant, who lives in Oakland with his wife and children are long time friends and supporters of John Bauters’ political career.  He gave the Emeryville Council member $500 for his re-election campaign in 2019.  In 2023, when it was mostly Republicans clamoring for Alameda County DA Pamela Price to be recalled, the Bauters supporter gave $100 to the effort.  

On a popular social media site, the assailant prominently posted a photograph of himself and his two children.  The Tattler has blanked out the faces of his children for purposes of this story.  After punching me in the face and taunting me, the assailant said, “Don’t threaten my children”.

  At no time did I threaten his children as the video shows; as a matter of fact, I went out of my way to protect his children.  It was this violent man himself that (psychologically) harmed his own children.

The assailant is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at an expensive Berkeley international private school where he is tasked with serving as an “ambassador for the larger community”.  The school claims their commitment to the community is to “interact with respect and kindness with everyone in our community.”

He is also the principle at an eponymous local insurance agency that is listed with $5 million revenue.

Political Violence

Amid ever increasing political violence around the nation, it was probably only a matter of time before it came to Emeryville.  Council member Bauters himself has been instrumental in changing the politics in Emeryville, leading a turn away from accountability, transparency and democratic inclusion.  This has come in the form of not answering emails, texts or phone calls of his constituents as well as a refusal to hold press conferences, all meant to keep his 'brand' untarnished, something not possible for a real politician in a true democracy.  The Mayor Courtney Welch and Council member Sukhdeep Kaur have also taken up this Bautersian ‘shield of darkness’ political tactic.  The total narrative control Bauters has birthed in Emeryville means constituents who ask him tough questions will find themselves frozen out.  The press as well.  In fact, the whole reason I seek to get questions answered at public events from these undemocratically minded Council members is that is the only time they can be approached and be subject to a question about their policies. 

The violence brought this condemnation from
Council member Priforce.  The rest of the Council
members refused to comment on it. Maybe they think 
political violence is no big deal?

With political violence spilling out of red states a lack of accountability from a politician, born of a binary narrative that the community is made up of good (supportive) people and bad (unsupportive) people, can lead to violence here.  What Mr Bauters and his Council followers are doing can rive the community into warring camps and ultimately, political violence.  Strong leadership is what’s needed to stop political violence.  But it also requires the whole community to be on board.  Sarah Birch, Professor of Political Science at King’s College London and author of Electoral Violence, Corruption, and Political Order says “A community that will tolerate violence will get violence. A community that does not tolerate violence is much less likely to have violence.”   

Emeryville citizens can put aside political differences and collectively refuse political violence, but it will take saying NO to it.  Greater American political dysfunction of the violent kind is creeping into Emeryville.  Because what may have been seen as abstract and foreign in the recent past can now be seen in actual fists impacting actual faces.   We have learned it can happen here.

The video of the incident may be viewed HERE.

Lifted from his social media account, the assailant 
posted this picture of himself with his two children.
We blocked out their faces out of respect for them.
He punched a man in the face, unprovoked, in front
of his own children. Lifetime memories were made.