'He Was Really Mad': Cameraman Says He Was Assaulted While Monitoring Polls During Colo. Election — and He Has Video

A cameraman for an organization that has vowed to live-stream video of all polling locations during a contentious Colorado recall election said he was assaulted in the line-of duty on Monday.

Jared Petsche was operating a camera for an organization called Revealing Politics, which  has promised to live-stream video of each polling location in Colorado's recall election of Senate President John Morse.

Petsche, a paid employee of Revealing Politics, was monitoring a downtown location in Colorado Springs when an unidentified man approached him and asked why he was filming.

According to the group, Petsche was legally required to remain silent while filming inside 100 ft. of the the polling location and, thus, could not respond to the man's inquiry.

The man, who appeared to be upset that he was being filmed without knowing why, confronted Petsche, eventually knocking his camera to the ground.

"What is it all about?" the man can be seen asking.

The video then goes silent during the altercation. Kelly Maher, who heads Revealing Politics, told TheBlaze Petsche muted the audio midway through the altercation, but she was unsure why.

Watch the video, courtesy of Revealing Politics:

The entire incident was captured on film and later uploaded to YouTube where it has garnered over 3,000 views in one day.

"He was really mad," the group said in a slide on the edited video released by Revealing Politics.

In an interview with TheBlaze on Tuesday, Petsche said he didn't have any physical injuries as a result of the incident, but said he had sustained "emotional stress."

Petsche added that he was filing a police report, but was not yet sure if he would file charges against the man if he is eventually identified.

The group did release the raw footage, which shows the man walking out of the polling place and almost immediately approaching the camera (it starts at about seven minutes in):

On their website, Revealing Politics says they attend all sorts of political events to increase the public's awareness.

"We are the people who go to all of those town hall meetings, meet and greets, and fundraisers and report back to you," their website reads.

Maher said the live-streaming of polling locations is simply aimed at increasing transparency.

"We want to make sure if something odd happens... we want to make sure we capture that on film so that people can be aware of what is happening," she said. "We are trying to increase transparency of the entire election."

Maher denied, however, that Petsche's filming of the polling location — without informing individuals entering and leaving — is at all intimidating.

"We are filmed in all aspects of our lives, everywhere. You buy gas and you're on camera, you go to the ATM, you're on camera," she said. "You can see very clearly that Jared was merely standing back and the man on film was the aggressor toward him, not the other way around. Jared acted in no way to be intimidating."

(H/T: @BenHowe)

Follow Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) on Twitter

--

[related]