ST. PAUL - A 32-year-old River Falls, Wis., woman was arrested over the weekend after allegedly spitting on a woman who was collecting signatures to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Kaarin A. Thompson was arrested and cited for disorderly conduct after the Sunday afternoon incident, said River Falls Police Chief Roger Leque. Thompson could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Leque said police were called to the 600 block of North Main Street in River Falls about 1 p.m. by workers who were trying to obtain recall signatures. They reported that a woman -- later identified as Thompson -- stopped her vehicle, approached them and began swearing, Leque said.
Thompson reportedly tipped over a table used to collect signatures, threw it toward the street and spat at a worker, Leque said.
Thompson got back into her vehicle and left before police arrived, but not before someone took down her license plate number, Leque said.
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The responding officer later learned that Thompson had called police to complain about the signature collectors, Leque said, adding that police later spoke with Thompson and she "basically admitted having the altercation."
Thompson was arrested, booked and released, Leque said.
Jim Camery, chairman of the Pierce County Democratic Party, said the recall workers felt threatened by Thompson and were upset by the incident but continued collecting signatures.
The incident followed a similar one Saturday in which the sheriff's office was called after a
man began shouting at recall signature collectors in Elmwood, Wis., Camery said. The man left before police arrived, he said.
Camery said tensions are rising over the Walker recall effort and incidents such as those that occurred over the weekend are becoming more frequent.
"People are going beyond screaming out the window to wanting to have a face-to-face confrontation," Camery said. "We're doing the same (things) we were doing a month ago, but it's getting a different response now."
Two men, ages 55 and 28, were arrested over the weekend for allegedly spitting on people gathering recall signatures in southwestern Wisconsin, according to the Capital Times.
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The incident reportedly occurred Saturday in the village of Arena. The men, both of Barneveld, Wis., were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct.
The effort to recall Walker will need about 540,000 signatures by mid-January to trigger a recall election. Organizers announced last week that they had collected more than 507,000.
The recall effort follows Walker's controversial changes in public employees' collective bargaining powers.
This story includes information from the Associated Press.
Distributed by MCT Information Services
