A spokesman for Ron Paul's presidential campaign released a statement Tuesday in response to a Yahoo News story describing an altercation between Eddie Dillard, a Paul supporter, and a Gingrich private security officer earlier that day. Paul's campaign called on the Gingrich campaign to apologize, and to fire the employee.
"They say the culture of an organization is a reflection of its top executive, and today's deplorable behavior against Ron Paul supporter Eddie Dillard in Florida reflects very poorly on Congressman Gingrich," Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Paul, said in the statement. "I call on Congressman Gingrich to publicly apologize to Mr. Dillard. In addition, we ask that those Gingrich campaign staff directly involved in the episode be immediately terminated."
The incident occurred Tuesday morning at a voting precinct outside of Orlando where Gingrich was scheduled to meet with voters. Dillard had arrived early to vote, and remained outside the precinct to hold a "Ron Paul 2012" sign. When Gingrich arrived, he stopped in front of Dillard to greet voters, and the Paul supporter lifted his sign above his head. Gingrich's security detail tried to block Dillard, who was wearing sandals, and one of the agents pressed the heel of his shoe on Dillard's bare foot when he would not leave.
The pressure on his foot created a bruise, which is pictured below.
A bruise marks the foot of Eddie Dillard after an altercation with Newt Gingrich's security detail on Tuesday (Chris …
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