Six citizens were shaken after they said a security guard at Sen. Bob Corker’s Memphis office assaulted and threatened them as they tried to deliver Christmas cards opposing the GOP’s so-called tax bill.
“The security guard bent my arm, snatched my phone out of my hand, snatched Thomas’ phone out of his hands, made physical threats to us,” said Hunter Demster, who had sought to take a photo outside Corker’s office Tuesday Dec. 19.
The citizens had knocked on Corker’s office door at 100 Peabody Place, Suite 1125, but no one was there. They were trying to take a photo of a sign when they were accosted by two security guards who became verbally and physically aggressive.
“He threatened to fight me. He said he wanted to meet me outside,” Demster said. “He threatened us in an elevator. He said, ‘What do you want to do now, you’re trapped in the elevator with me?’
“Another security guard had to literally place himself between this one security guard and Thomas.
”I can’t even process what just happened,” said Demster as he and others regrouped after being thrown out of the building which contains Corker’s downtown Memphis office.
Earlier in the day, in Memphis and across the country citizens protested the Republican tax bill which would shift wealth into the hands of those who are already well off at the expense of a majority of Americans who would lose medical care and other programs designed to broadly benefit citizens.
Their efforts were in vain, however, as Corker voted for the bill, and it passed the Senate and went back to the House, which also voted for it along party lines but then said they would need a do-over to reconcile some further issues raised by Senate staff.
We left messages at Corker’s offices asking for the senator’s response but have not heard back. Sources reported that Corker staffers were expecting to have visitors on the day of the infamous vote and had put security on alert.
Video of Corker’s security threatening, ejecting six citizens from his Memphis office building.
Meanwhile, International Business Times reports that Corker switched his vote after a provision in the bill was added that would personally benefit his real estate investments as well as real estate LLCs owned by his chief of staff Todd Womack.