A supporter of President-elect Donald Trump came face-to-face with the protester he sucker-punched at a raucous rally in Fayetteville, N.C., in March.
John Franklin McGraw, 79, of Linden, N.C., spoke to Rakeem Jones in a Cumberland County courtroom on Wednesday and vowed to help mend the deeply divided nation.
“You know what you did, and I know what I did. I’m not going to say you were wrong or I’m wrong,” McGraw told Jones, according to local CNN affiliate WRAL.
He continued: “I hate it worse than anything in the world. If I met you in the street and the same thing occurred, I would have said, ‘Go on home. One of us will get hurt.’ That’s what I would have said. But we are caught up in a political mess today, and you and me, we got to heal our country.”
McCraw pleaded “no contest” to all charges: assault and battery, disorderly conduct and communicating a threat, according to local ABC affiliate WTVD. He received a 30-day suspended sentence and 12 months of unsupervised probation. He was also ordered to pay $180 in court costs and a $250 fine.
Afterward, outside the courtroom, Jones told reporters, “I just felt good being able to shake his hand and being able to, you know, being able to actually face him.”
Both men became inextricably linked in the national conversation about violence at Trump’s presidential campaign rallies after their encounter on March 9. Uniformed security officers were escorting Jones, who was flipping the finger to the booing crowd, out of Crown Coliseum when McGraw punched him in the face. The officers wrestled Jones to the ground but did nothing to detain his assailant, who returned to his seat.
McGraw then told “Inside Edition” that he enjoyed “knocking [the] hell out of that big mouth.” He falsely speculated without any evidence that Jones might be affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group and perhaps should be killed.
“We don’t know if he’s ISIS. We don’t know who he is, but we know he’s not acting like an American,” he said. “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.”
When video footage of the incident went viral, viewers were equally aghast at the attack and at the response from security. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office subsequently disciplined the five sheriff’s deputies involved.
“The actions of the deputies and their failures to act in situations such as that which occurred during the Trump rally at the Crown Coliseum have never been and will not ever be tolerated under the policies of this office,” Cumberland County Sheriff Earl “Moose” Butler said in a statement at the time.
The road to forgiveness between McGraw and Jones took a giant leap forward last month when they spoke for the first time via webcam on Panacea Open Courtroom.
On Wednesday, Jones told WTVD outside the courtroom that their moment of reconciliation was genuine and that it would have occurred even if both men met in private.
“I didn’t do it for a clap to be honest. I would have did it had it just been him and me standing there by ourselves,” Jones said. “It was just a real moment. I guess everyone seen it, and it wasn’t for them. It was for us.”
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