Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
Janesville, Wisconsin, police are looking for a Donald Trump supporter who may have pepper-sprayed a teenage girl outside a campaign event on Tuesday.
Police initially said a 15-year-old female was sexually assaulted and attacked with pepper spray by two different men during a protest outside a campaign event. (Officials later said there was no evidence of a sexual assault.) Janesville police released photos of a person of interest believed to be the man who pepper-sprayed the girl.
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Before she was pepper-sprayed, the girl accused a middle-aged man with gray hair of fondling her, as seen on video below. Though police now say that turned out to be false, officials said on Friday that they believe the teen did punch the 59-year-old man. Janesville Police Chief David Moore said she was referred to juvenile authorities on disorderly conduct charges, but the man has not chosen to press charges.
Here is the incident from another angle.
After she was pepper-sprayed, a Trump supporter told her: “You goddamn communist nigger-lover, get the hell out of here!”
The apparent assault came hours after Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was charged with battery against former Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields after grabbing her at a Jupiter, Florida, event on March 8.
But in recent months, violence has become common practice at rallies for the real estate mogul. In January, he told his supporters to “knock the crap out of [protesters].” He added, “I will pay for the legal fees. I promise.”
After a 78-year-old supporter sucker-punched a black man who was being escorted out of a venue in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Trump said he was “looking into” actually following through on his word when the man was charged with assault.
On March 20, a protester was punched and kicked at a rally in Tuscon, Arizona. “I stumble back, sucker-punch.. and then you saw all hell break loose,” the man said. “He’s stomping me.” At that event, Trump had called protesters “disgusting,” “troublemakers,” and a “disgrace.”
And the reality-TV personality’s planned Chicago rally was notoriously canceled this month after a series of violent eruptions. Reports told of more than one protester being led away by police, with blood oozing out of wounds on their face and elsewhere.
