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Alabama man accused of slashing 'Baby Trump' balloon ordered to get counseling and do community service
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Alabama man accused of slashing 'Baby Trump' balloon ordered to get counseling and do community service

'It comes a point when you gotta take a stand,' the suspect previously said.

A court ordered an Alabama man who reportedly slashed a "Baby Trump" balloon at a football game last year to get counseling and do community service in an effort to get the charges against him dropped.

The Associated Press reported Friday:

If Hoyt Hutchinson, 32, finishes the Tuscaloosa County District Attorney's diversion program without any other infractions, the case and charges against him could be removed from his record. Hutchinson will also be required to pay $3,500 to the group that rents out the inflatable for the damages.

Hutchinson is accused of deflating the diaper-clad "Baby Trump" during a University of Alabama football game the President attended in November. The 20-foot-tall inflatable, commonly used as a protest symbol, was set up in a nearby park.

After Hutchinson's arrest, the Tuscaloosa Police Department put out a statement on Facebook that said the suspect "attempted to flee the area" but that police "apprehended the suspect and took him into custody on a charge of Criminal Mischief First Degree."

In the wake of his arrest, a GoFundMe page raised tens of thousands of dollars in order to help Hutchinson "pay legal fees and restitutions," according to The Hill.

"It comes a point when you gotta take a stand," Hutchinson later told the "Rick & Bubba Show" of his thinking. "We don't have two parties anymore. We have good versus evil. When you got one party that says it's OK to kill babies and by the way, this is the first time I've ever seen a liberal get mad about chopping up a baby."

WIAT-TV reported Thursday that the court-ordered counseling and community service were part of Tuscaloosa County District Attorney's Second Chance program, which is a pre-trial diversion program. Hutchinson was charged with first-degree criminal mischief related to the widely covered slashing.

The Alabama deflation wasn't the first run-in a large, inflatable likeness of the U.S. president in a diaper has had with a sharp object. In June, a woman stabbed a "Baby Trump" blimp in the back at a protest near the House of Commons as Trump was visiting the United Kingdom.

"The president of the United States is the best president ever, shame on you!" the woman said after the stabbing, according to Mashable.

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