Here's what we know about the former UMass Memorial Health Care employee who was reportedly in D.C.

[sheshe2]

Here’s what we know about the former UMass Memorial Health Care employee who was reportedly in D.C. before the Capitol siege

She has been fired from her job! Identified by her daughter. Love it.

The woman, Therese Duke, was identified by her daughter after a video of her being punched outside the Freedom Plaza in D.C. was filmed and went viral Tuesday, a night before the Capitol siege.

“Hi mom remember the time you told me I shouldn’t go to BLM protests bc they could get violent,” Helena Duke tweeted alongside the clip on Thursday, adding, “this you?”

Helena Duke identified her mother, her aunt Annie Lorenz, and her uncle Richard Lorenz in the clip as those included in a group of Trump supporters confronting a Black woman. The video shows Therese Duke appearing to grab at the woman, who responds by punching Duke. Another clip shared after the incident shows Duke with a bloodied face.

snip

The Black woman, who is now facing criminal charges, detailed the Tuesday incident on a GoFundMe page she created to help with legal fees: “A video has surfaced where I was surrounded by a group of Trump extremists, and I honestly feared for my life. The video makes me look like I am the aggressor, but it does not show what happened prior to my defending myself.”

snip

“People shoved me, tried to take my phone and keys, yelled racial epithets at me, and tried to remove my mask,” she said in her GoFundMe. “I asked them to social distance and stay out of my personal space due to COVID. They refused, and I was afraid of being hurt and harmed. After being assaulted, I defended myself.”

Link to tweet

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news-2/2021/01/10/therese-duke-umass-memorial-capitol-siege?s_campaign=bcom%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter

[SunSeeker]

1. Love it! nt

[sheshe2]

3. Good on the daughter.

And glad mom lost her job. Lol...on a vid I saw the roundhouse face punch. It was sweet and deserved.

[SunSeeker]

5. I read the mom had already disowned her daughter for being a lesbian.

So they were already estranged. Some people on twitter were giving the girl shit for finking on her mom. But her mom stopped being a mother to her some time ago.

That mom is a horrible human on so many levels.

[sheshe2]

9. Yep.

Mom kicked her out for being a lesbian. Can you imagine disowning your daughter for being gay? Twitter gives the daughter shit? FFS. You betrayed your own and deserve no loyalty when you yourself preform a criminal act. She assaulted another woman and decided to commit insurrection against our government.

Kudos to the daughter.

[Celerity]

6. more Nazis need punching like this, that white trash POS fucked with the wrong black woman

Link to tweet

Help Ashanti With Legal Fees

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-ashanti-with-legal-fees

Hello. My name is Ashanti. I am a 28-year-old Black woman who lives in the DMV AREA. I recently was assaulted, attacked and harassed by a group of Trump supporters on Black Lives Matter Plaza in DC on January 5th, 2021. A video has surfaced where I was surrounded by a group of Trump extremists, and I honestly feared for my life. The video makes me look like I am the aggressor, but it does not show what happened prior to my defending myself. People shoved me, tried to take my phone and keys, yelled racial epithets at me, and tried to remove my mask. I asked them to social distance and stay out of my personal space due to COVID. They refused, and I was afraid of being hurt and harmed. After being assaulted, I defended myself. I am now facing criminal charges. I have also been relieved from my employment pending an investigation, which places me in a hardship. I am asking for support and help with funds for my legal fees and to maintain the essential things that I need to survive during this time. Any amount of help is truly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[Lucinda]

8. ...

[sheshe2]

10. Good punch!

[DFW]

2. After being assaulted first, the victim is facing charges for defending herself?

Where do they think they are? Europe?

(I live in Europe, and the you will get charged in most countries here if you defend yourself from theft or assault, and you assailant will not unless they use a firearm).

[sheshe2]

4. Apparently.

Ain't America great. **sigh** Europe too?

[DFW]

12. Europe has been that way since always

An old friend of mine (he was 70 — seemed old at the time!) ran a coin and currency exchange shop in downtown Paris. He had befriended a Bulgarian who used to sometimes drop in. My friend‘s wife was Serbian, and it‘s similar enough to Bulgarian so the two could chat. Eventually, they were comfortable with the guy that they let him behind the security barrier so he could come in and have coffee with them. One day the wife wasn‘t there. Once in the secure area, the Bulgarian pulled out a hammer and started beating my friend over the head with it to subdue him and rob him. But my friend was pretty tough, even at 70. With blood streaming down his head and face, he managed to take the hammer away, and beat his assailant into submission long enough to call the cops. I saw him, all bandaged up, a couple of days later. He was completely bummed out, because the Bulgarian was let off with a warning, while he was charged with assault and battery.

Germany is the same way. I once helped the cops here catch a known band of thieves from Croatia. They were traveling around Germany robbing dealers at trade shows, stealing money, gold, jewelry, etc. Always attacking small part-time dealers that didn‘t have the money to afford private security. The head guy kept saying he spoke no German until he was forced to show his ID which was a German passport which was stolen and faked with his photo crudely inserted. The cops carted him off after I gave the names of 2 detectives, one in Berlin, and one in Munich, that were looking for him. So what happened? He came before a judge in Hannover who said, „oh, it‘s just a passport infraction. Let him go.“ Can you imagine if the cops in the USA were presented with a wanted boss of a theft ring traveling on a fake US passport?

[smirkymonkey]

13. I'm sorry, but that is insane.

I love many things about Europe, but that is just one thing I can't understand. I can see how that would make people very angry, especially with increased crime. What if someone is trying to rape you or cause bodily harm? Does that mean you can't fight back?

[DFW]

14. You are allowed to try to escape, but not to harm your assailant

This stance has been a huge boon to the far fight, who gets a boost in membership every time this happens. Every time an immigrant beats up a friend or a woman or robs someone, and is let back on the street the same day, a few more voters for the far right are created, and it‘s all done in the name of „tolerance,“ something the far right will show no one, including the innocent, if they ever take power.

[smirkymonkey]

15. Aren't there any liberal politicians who try to challenge these laws?

Why shouldn't people have the right to self-defense, particularly when they don't know how much harm the assailant intends to cause them or if the victim is weaker and inflicting damage is the only method they have of possibly escaping unharmed?

This really doesn't seem to make any sense at all and certainly seems to be contributing to the surge in membership of far right groups. Is anyone in Europe, or even Germany, even having a conversation about how wrong this is? Nobody should be victimized twice by attempting to defend themselves from an attacker.

[DFW]

16. Blame the original Nazis

After the war, most of Western Europe wanted to bend over backwards NOT to be like the Nazis or their local collaborators. The result was that they went too far in the opposite direction. The Nazi police (and the police in the socialist countries) are/were too brutal? Not us! Our cops wouldn't hurt a fly (and you had better not either!).

This became de facto established law, and only the far right loves it.

Remember the old Republican "love the cops" joke? "What is a liberal? A conservative that hasn't been mugged yet." Well, stupid as that was, in Europe, it is more a fact of life than a lousy joke.

[Lucinda]

7. KNR

[usajumpedtheshark]

11. Black woman punches white woman. Of course she is going to be charged. Charges will be

dropped based on video evidence.