A 70-year-old poet, Stephen Redic, has been arrested and charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct after allegedly slapping an 18-year-old Turning Point Action member in the face outside a Laconia, New Hampshire, elementary school serving as a polling place. The incident, captured on video, shows Redic approaching a Turning Point tent as he was leaving, expressing a desire to read a poem about rich people. The viral footage depicts an increasingly agitated Redic shouting at the victim, giving him the middle finger, and then backhanding him across the face before storming off, all while onlookers expressed audible surprise. Police were called to the scene, and Redic was arrested the following morning. This event draws a somber parallel to the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk 14 months prior at a similar event in Utah, though Redic has no prior police contact and published a book of poems in 2023 where he claimed to have met every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. Redic is scheduled for an arraignment on December 10th.
Adapted from: U.S. News Today on Fox News
