PROVIDENCE — As hundreds gathered on the plaza at the bottom of the Rhode Island State House steps Friday night
for a rally after the US Supreme Court
overturned Roe v. Wade, a man who was live-streaming the demonstration began shouting at the crowd.
The man, who identified himself as Josh Mello of Cranston
on the social media accounts where he
shared his live stream, was quickly surrounded by people, many of whom told him to leave. One man pushed Mello. More people started shouting.
One of the demonstration's organizers, Jennifer Rourke — a board member of The Womxn Project and candidate for a State Senate District 29 seat in Warwick — rushed over to try to defuse the situation. "This (conflict) is not what this is about," Rourke, who is also a co-founder of the R.I. Political Cooperative, told the Globe on Saturday.
Video from the demonstration shows Rourke holding her hands up and repeatedly asking people, in English and Spanish, to move away. She asked Mello to leave, and she said he agreed.
But as Mello walked up the stairs to the first platform at the State House steps, waving his cell phone as he continued live stream, he was assaulted by an unidentified man in a green- and white-striped jacket. As of Saturday, the man had not been identified.
"I screamed 'Don't hit him,'" Rourke said in a phone interview Saturday morning. Then, video shows, someone struck her in the face. "I was hit multiple times," she said.
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