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Sunday, April 22, 2007
Oh, dear. Real blood spilled over health care discussion?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blogger Jason Pye and PeachPundit.com have reported, and we have confirmed, that a fight broke out at the Sine Die party that House members attended early Saturday morning after the midnight adjournment of the Legislature.
“Apparently one lobbyist’s ear was partially cut off by a beer bottle to the head,” said Pye. The alleged topic of the argument was health care policy. We haven’t been able to get confirmation on either of those two statements.
Here’s what we have been able to confirm, in an on-the-record conversation with Chris Cummiskey, chief of staff to House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
“There was a fight,” Cummiskey said. The party was at the Spotted Dog on North Avenue. Both House and Senate members attended. We know not who picked up the tab.
The speaker was there at the time — though he didn’t mention it at a Saturday appearance several hours later — but Richardson wasn’t in the vicinity of the combatants, Cummiskey said.
Cummiskey called the fight an episode between “two kids” who had too much liqour.
The only official details we have is that a Peter Aaron Stokes, 26, has been booked into the Fulton County Jail. He hasn’t yet had a first appearance before a judge. Here’s his entry on the State Ethics Commission database, detailing Stokes’ clients.
Cummiskey identified the alleged victim for us, but we’ll wait for police confirmation before we publish the name.
