Sorry, Glen Casada, Protesters Didn't Vandalize Anything

On Thursday morning, Tennessee Senate leadership told reporters that they might implement new, more time-consuming security measures in the wake of Wednesday's fiasco of a press conference by Rep. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) and Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet). Capitol and Legislative Plaza security got rid of ID checks and name tags last session, as lines to get in the buildings sometimes wrapped around the block on busy days; now they might come back.

“We’re in favor of going back to having a little more security about who comes and goes in the building,” said Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge). “It doesn’t prevent them from coming in, but we know who’s coming in and who’s bypassing security. … I think people having their name tags on, it’s a little bit of a deterrent to being violent or disruptive.”

McNally said he had talked with some House leaders about the change, so I called House Majority Leader Glen Casada (R-Thompson's Station) to find out what he was thinking about the situation. He said he hadn't yet talked with McNally, but he had talked to House Speaker Beth Harwell's staff.

"I spoke to the Speaker’s staff in light of the vandalism that occurred and the protests yesterday. And, you know, it just makes sense to be keeping a list of who's coming and going, because we need to see if any criminal activity is occurring in Capitol," Casada said.

What vandalism? I had heard nothing about any vandalism at all, and as I covered all 17 minutes of the protests on Wednesday, I was surprised I missed something. Casada told me that protesters had smashed a vase in Pody's office, and that they had thrown a lamp across the room. (Or maybe had just broken a lamp? I'm not exactly clear.)

The thing is — I was in Pody's office with the protesters. And none of that happened.

I said as much to Casada. He told me that I must not have been able to see the whole room. I said it was a tiny office, and I could see everything. He said there were so many protesters in there I must not have been able to see what happened. I said there were five or six people in there, and everyone else was in the hall. (This was slightly incorrect; upon reviewing video, there were eight people in the office itself, four reporters and camera crews, and four sad, angry, but calm protesters.)

Casada said that his source — a staffer who he would not name but he said had witnessed the events — was terrified by the protesters and "felt threatened like in Berkeley" and was worried he or she would get beaten up like a man did out there just because he was wearing a Trump hat. I again stated that no one was in the least bit violent in the office. Casada said that he would be believing what he was told by someone not actually inside the room over anything I said, even though I was in the room, and that "violent" protests like that shouldn't be happening.

"That kind of riffraff is just not tolerated. It is intolerant, and it is evil," Casada said, right before his phone battery died.

Fake news, I laughed to myself as I got off the phone. How ridiculous. But then it occurred to me that I left the office when Pody left the office to flee the building, and maybe some random protester did pop in and trash things. Or maybe a staffer was pretending things had gotten trashed in order to delegitimize the protesters. Both options seemed highly unlikely, but as a reporter, I needed to report out the facts before stating Casada was wrong.

Here's what I found out — Pody's assistant, Debbie Stephens, did indeed have a vase of flowers knocked off her desk. Nothing was broken, and she has since reassembled the arrangement into a less aesthetically pleasing but still attractive grouping.

But the flowers weren't intentionally knocked over by protesters. They were almost surely accidentally knocked over by a television cameraperson's equipment, right as we were all leaving the office to follow Pody — which explains why I didn't see anything, as I had just stepped into the hallway before it happened. How do I know this? Because there is a video (kind of).

If you go to 10 minutes in of this unedited NewsChannel5 Facebook livestream of the events, you see Pody leave his office, followed by me. Then there is a thumping sound, followed by a male voice saying, "Uh-oh." The flowers were on the corner of the desk in front of which the camera crews were standing — which you can see is the case earlier in the video, or you can just take my word for it. As the camera crews had to run to follow Pody down the hall, they couldn't stay to clean up or leave a note.

There was no damage at all to any lamp anywhere in the office, according to Stephens, who called the post-protester slight dishevelment of her office "no big deal."

It is possible Casada got the idea damage was done from Michelle Hale, who is Knoxville Republican Rep. Roger Kane's assistant and works in the office across the hall. While the protesters were in the hallway for those few minutes — standing quietly and peacefully, conversing, for the most part — Hale came out and started complaining to a couple of them. (You can see the exchange in a Facebook live video taken by a House Democratic Caucus staffer starting about 11 minutes in.)

“I can’t believe you can bust into a state representative’s office like that,” Hale said. “I work here, and there’s a right way and a wrong way. This building belongs to more than you, it belongs to a lot of people.”

“It definitely belongs to the taxpayers,” a protester chimed in.

“Well the people who work here, the staff members, are taxpayers, and you’re disrespecting us by busting into a nice man’s office,” Hale responded. A couple of protesters pushed back on her. She replied, “Well, I’m protesting you, outside of my office.” It disintegrated from there.

On Facebook later, Hale later posted pictures of the protesters, state troopers escorting Pody out, and the knocked-over vase of flowers.

"Shame on you protestors at Rep Mark PODY's office today! Shame! They stormed the office and knocked off Debbie's papers, flowers — if you have a problem or a different view you protest peacefully and act civilized. This was not nice and very disrespectful. Shame on you," Hale wrote. "Protesting should be civilized and these people were just shameful."

The comments on the picture of the flowers on the floor include, "Hope someone was arrested over this," and, "They should be arrested and made to clean up the mess. They should be made to write an apology and if they don't keep them in jail until they feel remorse for their actions. That isn't protesting. That is destruction of property. Protesting is one thing rioting is another!!!"

(It should be noted, at this point, that there was a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer outside of the door the entire time. If there had been an actual act of vandalism here, law enforcement likely would have acted.)

This would be laughable — the vase is clearly not broken in the picture, the flowers are not badly damaged — if this destruction of property theory was not now being championed by the second-highest ranking Republican in the House as a reason to possibly crack down on the first amendment right to assembly.

To Casada's credit, he hasn't called for the "imprisonment" of protesters, as Beavers did today, citing a little-utilized statute of the Tennessee constitution. However, it does seem odd that Casada cares so much about imaginary crimes committed by protesters but not by a drunken legislator touching a staffer inapporpriately, like the recently resigned Rep. Mark Lovell allegedly did. On Thursday morning, when asked if the D.A.'s office should investigate Lovell, Casada told The Tennessean this:

Casada, R-Franklin, dismissed the idea of reporting possible criminal activity to local police.

"Should we report everything that we find offensive? I just think it doesn't work that way...So, I just think we run the run the risk of clogging up the law enforcement (system) and being like a McCarthy-era, where everything someone does is looked upon and it becomes a very scary place," Casada said.

"I think it just smacks of McCarthyism to, every time someone does something I don't like, I report it. That's not a good place to be as a free people."

But in case you were wondering how "evil" those "intolerant" protesters really are, maybe this will shed some light. One of them was tipped off to Hale's Facebook posts. Despite having no idea what happened to the flowers yet upset that anything at all had happened, she sent Stephens a bouquet today — and she also encouraged others to do the same.

"Our issue is with her boss, not with her," the woman wrote on the We Are Watching Facebook page. (I spoke with her this afternoon to confirm the series of events, but she did not want her act of kindness recognized by name.) "The other side is desperately trying to portray us as paid protestors, anarchists, and thugs because they don't want to accept that we are simply Tennesseans who believe in equality for all. We will push back on that characterization all day long. They wanna go low. We can go high."

Stephens said she was surprised to find out her flowers were sent by a protester.

"If you know who sent the flowers, tell them I really appreciate it," Stephens said. "I know everybody has their own opinion, but I appreciate them thinking about me."