CLEVELAND (AP) — An Election Day poll worker tried to
bite off a voter’s nose during an argument Tuesday over a campaign sign,
police and election officials said.
"This is absolutely
unacceptable behavior that we do not tolerate," Cuyahoga County
elections director Jane Platten said. The elections board identified the
worker for Cleveland police, who are seeking to arrest him, she said.
Greg
Flanagan, 49, who had just voted, said he was bitten when he went to
the aid of a campaign worker who was in an argument with an election
employee over a sign posted near the polls.
Flanagan, left with a slash down one side of his nose and dizziness from a head butt, said the incident
shocked him.
"What
was going through my mind was I couldn’t believe it was happening and I
knew what I did was right and I shouldn’t have been treated that way by
another human being," he told The Associated Press.
He was treated at a hospital.
The
elections board said the employee, who was assigned to make checks at
various polling places, had a clean record working eight elections since
2006, but he wouldn’t be rehired.
Police spokesman Sgt. Sammy
Morris said officers are investigating, but the worker hadn’t
immediately been charged. By practice, charges are filed in Cleveland
after city prosecutors review police reports.
The police incident
report, which omitted the suspect’s name because he hadn’t been charged,
said Flanagan tried to intervene in an escalating argument about
whether a campaign sign was too close to the polling place in violation
of election rules.
"Measure the distance if you are concerned, and don’t be an ass," Flanagan said, according to
the police report.
"What did you say?" the election worker asked, and Flanagan repeated the substance of his
comment, the police report said.
"This
is when the named suspect grabbed the victim around the neck, head
butted him in between the eyes, then pulled his head close to him and
tried to bite his nose off," the police report said.
"He was
trying to intimidate a woman who was less than 5 feet tall and he’s
probably 6 feet," according to Flanagan, who said his language wasn’t
vulgar and didn’t justify an attack. "It was a conversation. I didn’t
yell it at him."
The election worker fled in his car, called the
elections board and was told to stay away from the polling place,
Platten said. Officers went to his apartment but he wasn’t home, the
police report said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.