Nick Cooke, the owner of Black Swan Bookstore in Richmond, said he called the police after a woman confronted Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist for President Donald Trump, in his shop Saturday.
The bookstore is on West Main Street in the Fan District.
Cooke said Bannon was in the bookstore Saturday afternoon and that a woman confronted him, calling him a “piece of trash.”
Cooke said he called 911 and the woman left as he made the call.
“Steve Bannon was simply standing, looking at books, minding his own business. I asked her to leave, and she wouldn’t. And I said, ‘I’m going to call the police if you don’t,’ and I went to call the police and she left,” Cooke said. “And that’s the end of the story.”
The Richmond Police Department confirmed a call was made around 3:15 p.m. Saturday for a report of someone yelling at a political figure in the bookstore and that the call was canceled before any officers responded.
“We are a bookshop. Bookshops are all about ideas and tolerating different opinions and not about verbally assaulting somebody, which is what was happening,” Cooke said.
Bannon grew up in Richmond’s Northside and graduated from Benedictine High School.
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This is the latest of many incidents of protest actions taken directly against Trump supporters and officials in their private time. This has gone too far, and there must be legal consequences. People have the right to be free of harassment and bullying.
Liberals confronted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., and the owner of the Red Hen, a restaurant in Lexington, declined service to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
A woman with her 2-year-old son confronted Trump’s now former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt in a D.C. restaurant and urged him to resign. Trump said Thursday that he had accepted his scandal-plagued EPA chief’s resignation.
A woman scales the base of the Statue of Liberty in protest of ICE.
The protester, identified as Therese Patricia Okoumou, told officers who were chasing her across the statue that she wouldn't come down until "all the children are released."
The rescue took nearly three hours while several other protesters staged a demonstration down below calling for "ICE" to be abolished.
Brian Glacken, a detective with the NYPD Emergency Service Unit, said at a news conference late Wednesday that after receiving a call about the woman just after 3 p.m., officers made their way to the base of the statue, where the woman was located and had a conversation with her.
"She was basically up there saying about the children in Texas. She just mentioned the kids in Texas," Glacken said, confirming the woman was protesting the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy.
Let’s just look at the background of Okoumou, shall we?
Therese Patricia Okoumou, 44, of Staten Island, was born and educated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but she has lived in New York for at least the last ten years, records show. She joined the group Rise and Resist, which unfurled an “Abolish ICE” banner at the base of the statue on Wednesday, a few months ago and has been taking part in approximately one protest a week with the group, according to member Jay Walker.
“She’s been an active member of Rise and Resist for four or five months,” Walker said. “She’s participated in quite a few of our actions.”
The group disavowed her lawbreaking stunt on their social media posts. “No one in the group knew this was going to happen,” Walker said. “We don’t know if she did it on the spur of the moment or if she had been planning it beforehand.”
He said he could see her at the base of the statue.
“She was standing on the platform, touching her foot,” he said. “I hope when they took her down they didn’t injure her. That’s our main concern.”
She was arrested and charged with federal trespassing, disorderly conduct, and other charges. She’s scheduled to be arraigned in Manhattan Federal Court on Thursday.
In August 2017, she was arrested for trespassing, obstruction of government administration and misdemeanor assault during a demonstration against the state Department of Labor on Varick Street.
Okoumou, who carried a protest placard, had covered her mouth with tape and refused police demands that she leave the building. She refused to enter an ambulance by lying on the ground, kicking her feet and flailing her arms, according to police. She was charged with misdemeanor assault after one of the cops was hit during her flailing, authorities said.
Public records show that Okoumou has a long history of fighting social justice battles, including her own.
In 2003, she filed a wrongful-termination lawsuit, charging racial discrimination after being fired from a job as a staffer at a battered women’s home called Safe Horizons. Okoumou’s boss complained that she was rude to other staffers and clients at the shelter, according to court records. Her lawyer eventually withdrew from the case and she represented herself, unsuccessfully for the remainder of the case.
She won $1,500 in a 2009 racial discrimination lawsuit against a Staten Island towing company, County Recovery. Okoumou sued a car towing company, accusing an employee of calling her a “n*.” Okoumou accused an employee, Pat, of, “She was talking about me being shipped back to Africa. She spoke of Africa as a dirty place. She clearly told me she doesn’t like foreigners. She told me I wasn’t a customer. And she just refused to help me. She did not even process my papers, my driver’s license. I had the cash money with me, she did not really care. She wanted to let me know she was an Italian, and I was a piece [of] s*. She said that I was a n***, I was really worth nothing. I shouldn’t even be in front of her.” Okoumou also said that Pat said that she was not a racist but that she didn’t like foreigners. Okoumou admitted to calling Pat a “redneck” during their interaction.
She unsuccessfully filed a human rights complaint in 2007 against a group home in Staten Island for racial discrimination.
Neighbors on Staten Island said that they were surprised by her statue stunt, but not by her reasoning.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Tito Rivera, the superintendent of her apartment building said. “She’s very outspoken about the Trump administration.”
A woman who lives in her building said she wears her passions on her sleeve.
“She can be very nice and she can be a b—h,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “When I vacuum, she bangs on the wall. I bang back, and she put a dent in my door.”
The two later reconciled after Okoumou took a liking to the woman’s dog.
The New York Post reported in August 2011 that Okoumou was forced to pay $4,500 in fines after she put ads for her personal trainer business on utility poles. Okoumou told the Post at the time, “This is ridiculous. How can I pay this?” The Post reports that Okoumou worked between New York City and the Catskills as a physical therapist. In her 2009 lawsuit, Okoumou said that most of her clients are white.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A woman scales the base of the Statue of Liberty <a href="https://twitter.com/StatueEllisNPS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StatueEllisNPS</a> <br> THE STATUE OF LIBERTY! HAPPY 4TH OF JULY! <a href="https://t.co/CJS8mFKGdb">pic.twitter.com/CJS8mFKGdb</a></p>— Bali Promotion Center (@translatorbali) <a href="https://twitter.com/translatorbali/status/1014620946626301952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
When asked about whether he has a personal relationship with Bannon, Cooke said he had no comment and wanted to respect Bannon’s privacy, describing him as “a private person in my bookshop.”
A photograph of what appeared to be Bannon in the bookshop circulated Saturday on Twitter.
<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/59cf888771e5370b1f5885716fa04530cf59bb8b631b094d591f2e6c1b164532.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">
<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit:<a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/richmond-bookstore-owner-says-he-called-police-after-woman-confronted/article_bbabdea4-acc0-5638-a4c5-2a9021d5bdd9.html"> Richmond </a></span
It is unclear who specifically confronted Bannon at Black Swan Books.
Efforts to contact Bannon early Saturday evening were unsuccessful.
There must be clear consequences for these actions. No one will feel safe to leave their homes. The Left claims that are the compassionate party but they are far from it. If you do not agree with their ideology then you are berated, bullied and threatened.
President Trump - We need your help by putting a stop to this!
Related Sources:
https://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/richmond-bookstore-owner-says-he-called-police-after-woman-confronted/article_bbabdea4-acc0-5638-a4c5-2a9021d5bdd9.html; http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/07/04/person-scales-statue-liberty-following-anti-ice-protests.amp.html; http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ny-metro-therese-patricia-okoumou-statue-of-liberty-protest-immigration-20180704-story.html?outputType=amp; https://heavy.com/news/2018/07/therese-patricia-okoumou/
<b>By: Lexy </b>
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This woman seems to be unhinged and causes commotion wherever she goes.
The Left is really taking this too far. I am happy to see that people are starting to recognize what a danger they have become. Good job to the Bookstore for calling the police.
The left have lost their minds. They think that a stunt like scaling lady liberty will change anything but it only displays their uncommon sense
The left have lost their minds. They think stunts like scaling Lady Liberty will make change but it only displays their uncommon sense
I'm hoping he handled that woman as I would've. She would never do it again.
I conservative walks into a liberals book store, asked for Trumps latest book, the owner yells at him
"Get the F Out" and he responds,….
Ya! That One!
We could dimiss some of these folks as uneducated or mis-informed but I’m beginning to think they more dangerous than that, they are becoming more like the evil that existed during World War II- the very thing they accuse Trump and his supporters of being
Unhinged! This behavior is getting out of hand. People need to grow up and talk not yell, before someone gets hurt….again
The left are unhinged. I’m beginning to think it really is a mental disorder.