The Rand Paul assault has turned into the biggest, most mysterious political saga of the week. I mean, sure, Trump-Russia, Mueller Time, etc, but I am flat-out fascinated by this whole Rand Paul thing. Last weekend, Rand Paul was violently assaulted by his neighbor, Rene Boucher. Boucher apparently tackled Rand Paul in Paul’s yard, and the tackle/assault was so violent and extreme that six of Senator Paul’s ribs are broken and he cannot even travel. The initial reports had people searching for any motive for the assault, like maybe it was political (Boucher is anti-Republican/anti-Trump) or maybe it was just a petty neighbor dispute about landscaping. This week, Rand Paul tweeted out a story about how the landscaping was never a real motive because he keeps his lawn very tidy. Well, here’s another layer of confusion: Boucher and his lawyer seem to be maintaining that the motive really was about lawncare. Also: Boucher and Sen. Paul haven’t even spoken to each other in YEARS??
Sen. Rand Paul’s neighbor appeared in court Thursday and offered no explanation for allegedly attacking the senator and breaking his ribs. Dressed in a suit and joined by attorney Matthew Baker, Rene Boucher pleaded not guilty to a charge of fourth-degree misdemeanor assault. Sources told NBC News that the dispute began when Paul was attacked from behind while mowing his lawn while wearing headphones.
Baker told NBC News Thursday of the assault “It’s not about politics” and “It’s a messy yard.” He said issues between the two men have been going on for a “long time.” Possible feuds over the property line, landscaping and politics have been floated as a possible motivation in the incident. Baker said that in the neighborhood people are “meticulous” about the appearance of their home “and without disparaging our senator, he’s not as meticulous as everybody else might be out there.”
Doug Stafford, senior adviser to Paul, in a statement issued Thursday said “As to reports of a longstanding dispute with the attacker, the Pauls have had no conversations with him in many years. The first ‘conversation’ with the attacker came after Sen. Paul’s ribs were broken,” Stafford said in the statement. “This was not a fight, it was a blindside, violent attack by a disturbed person. Anyone claiming otherwise is simply uninformed or seeking media attention.”
The current charge carries a sentence of up to 12 months in jail, but police told The Washington Post that the charges could rise to felony assault due to the severity of the senator’s injuries. Paul tweeted that he had six fractured ribs. Pressed by reporters outside the district court about the status of the charges, Warren County Attorney Amy Milliken said the charges could still change.
“Both the FBI and the Kentucky state police are continuing their investigation,” she said. Assaulting a member of Congress is a federal crime. Boucher, who like Paul is a doctor, is required to stay 1,000 feet away from the senator unless the neighbor is in his home, when the distance is reduced to 200 feet. Violating the stay-away order, the judge noted, would be a separate misdemeanor.
They’re both doctors. They haven’t spoken in years. They are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. One of them composts and keeps a pumpkin patch. How do all of those factual statements end up with a violent blitz attack on a senator??? Some of you have questioned whether this has anything to do with Rand’s son William, who seems to have some extreme drinking and entitlement issues and a long list of arrests and citations. William is Facebook friends with Rene Boucher’s daughter. Hm.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
I want to see if this makes it to court.
I’m gonna wait this one out. While people have been killed for less I’m gonna put my money on something more complicated than lawncare….. *sips tea**
Take this to the bank: boning. Don’t know who, what, where, or when but there was screwing and now – butthurt. You’re welcome.
🙂
Seems legit.
Yup. Six busted ribs is not compost or messy lawns. It’s someones been f*cking around and I’m not liking it.
Whether it was lawn-related or political differences, no one deserves that kind of treatment.
It takes a long time for broken ribs to heal, and it is very painful. Hope he ends up in jail.
While he’s healing he will have lots of time to think about how he was trying to screw the poor out of their health care. Pity he has the best insurance in the country so he will not feel the pain of trying to pay his his health ins
, pay for Meds and putting food on the table, btw, I wish him a speedy recovery, not!
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that he will draw that lesson from this experience. The Congressional Rep who was seriously injured by the shooter at the charity ball game practice didn’t seem to change his mind about anything. He dragged his broken body into the House to vote to take health care away from the rest of us…
I’m certainly not on Rand Paul’s side of the fence politically, but there is no excuse or justification for attacking him so violently.
oh, I don’t know. actually I do know.
There is only one reason I’d do this to anybody, or attempt to- they hurt my kid. They hurt my kid in such a way that my kid would not recover, or there was no legal recourse for my family.
But if I found out someone hurt my kid, I would wait until that someone felt safe, their back was turned, had headphones on, and get them.
Like sexual assault hurt, abuse hurt. Allowed my kid to be hurt by their kid, maybe.
so, yep, I admit it. I think there is more to this story than a deranged man upset about grass. That maybe he doesn’t want the story out there either, but he wants Rand to know that he knows, and rand is put on notice.
“it’s not about politics…it’s a messy yard”. oh well then, drop the charges, right? is this lawyer seriously trying to use “it’s a messy yard” as a defense against a violent physical assault??????
No, but he does want to minimize what happened to try and plead his client out without jail time. Also, he wants to keep the politically-motivated trolls at bay. They’ve been neighbors a long time—I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there’s a whole toxic stew of issues between these men and their families.
This. Rand Paul wants to look like a Republican hero and the neighbour’s lawyer wants it to not be about politics.
I’m telling you, rich people are ridiculously petty. A messy yard could definitely be the issue or maybe just the thing that this guy feels pushed him over the edge after years of not getting along with his neighbor?
I mean, the guy is completely in the wrong, but Paul can f*ck off if he thinks I’m dumb enough to buy into an “evil liberal” agenda here. One highly biased newspaper is not enough to alter my opinion that this is just two bored rich people fighting over petty crap.
Having lived next to an angry, obsessive neighbor with issues …..they haven’t spoken in years can mean a silent, glaring, passive aggressive relationship (lawn care “suggestion” notes left in mailbox) with anomosity simmering at all times……..
Fun time……👀
If it wasn’t Paul but another neighbor that got attacked this would be pleaded out with a minor charge. No excuse for beating up your neighbor but he shouldn’t be overcharged just because his neighbor is Rand Paul.
I’m still holding out hope that this was a lovers quarrel.
Lol!!!
Broken bones never get pled with a minor charge unless it’s mutual combat or a domestic violence situation with an uncooperative witness and no other witnesses
Hmm, indeed!! That connection is very interesting… you are definitely on to something.
1) That kid needs inpatient rehab, stat.
2) some drunken offense toward Boucher’s daughter by Paul’s son could very well have incited such violence. It sure as hell wasn’t over lawn issues- if that were the case, there would have been arguments about the subject prior to the assault.
I don’t think it’s political either, but I do think it relates to Boucher’s daughter and Rand’s son… that’s the kind of personal connection that would make a father go nuclear.
While I can certainly see Rand Paul being so aggravating I would want to go all Hulk Smash on him, actually doing so is unacceptable. Period. He needs to be held to account for it.
That being said, why do I find the thought of Rand, headphones on, maybe even whistling, unawares of what was barreling his way, So. Damn. Amusing. I am a horrible person.
Only reason this guy pleaded not guilty is because he knows Rand Paul will never let him open his mouth in court. Something went on here, but we’ll probably never know what it was, it will be settled quietly and Rand can feel some tender ribs whenever rain is coming.
I really believe it is something to do between Paul’s mid 20s son with a messy past and this guy’s teenage daughter, especially now that I know they are FB friends. Twitter rumors normally should be taken with a grain of salt, but the weird, specific nature plus evidence that they are FB friends makes me buy this particular rumor. This kind of violence feels oddly personal.
I also think both have probably been petty aholes over their lawns and after the assault Paul initially agreed to keep his mouth shut and pretend it was about the lawn to keep their kids out of the press.
I live in a bit of an uppity neighborhood and it is petty AF! A couple of days ago someone ranted about being reported to HOA for having his boat in his driveway a few days and he was given a warning. He, “didn’t have the time to tow the boat back to his lake house.” He basically told his neighbors to man up and talk to him instead of reporting. He didn’t see the irony in his rant. It lead to everyone else posting about their petty neighbor issues. I ended up logging in and unfollowing the thread because I just can’t get involved in first world issues about cars in driveways, boats in driveways, dogs barking or kids running across a lawn.
I’m hoping our stay here is only 2 more years then we can buy land in Alaska and live off the grid because everyone basically sucks no matter the neighborhood.
PS: I changed my handle for this post because who knows if my neighbors read celebitchy and suddenly I’m being reported for not raking up leaves.
Hahahaha. Hope you get to Alaska.
I haven’t raked leaves in years. Few people do nowadays. It’s actually recommended that we leave them on the lawn to nourish the grass. So I’ve been happily taking that advice despite the fact that I have no interest in nourishing the grass (allergic, keep threatening to pave the whole yard with green cement, except the cats enjoy it too much). I think our city encourages it because they don’t want to have to deal with disposal of the leaves. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody out raking leaves in years, or piling them up to burn.
I also consider leaves to be excellent cat toys.
I solved the lawn mowing problem by hiring an organized neighbor to do mine whenever she decides it has to be done…. She has a vested interest in keeping up her property value. She gets some gas and pizza money, and I get to avoid grass pollen.
A friend who helps me with yardwork said we should try to convince the city that my backyard is a deliberate wild garden, especially in Spring when everything grows so fast.
I live in a low income area. We have nice homes, quiet neighborhood but crazy neighbors. My husband & I take care of our yard like Rand Paul’s. We have seen some crazy HOA battiness even though we don’t live in an HOA neighborhood.
First two days we moved into our home. Get a knock on our door from the Neighborhood Committee. I thought “How nice they are welcoming me.” No, they wanted us to cut our trees down ASAP. These are healthy trees. They don’t want the trees in the neighborhood because they would prefer our block to be treeless. I told them I just moved in and their request was outrageous and probably illegal. They said the old lady that lived in our home before wouldn’t listen either. I wonder why.
Two weeks later a beautiful little girl in our neighborhood was kidnapped and killed. A few days later same committee comes over about our trees. I told them they need to be worried about the children in our neighborhood. They said that is the parents problem.
My last neighborhood I was the coalition. I worried about children and didn’t give two cares about trees, yards, leaves, driveways. I cared about safety.
This year one of the neighbor’s shyly asked if my husband could help her with her yard. Her husband was in the hospital. As he was mowing the yard another neighbor comes over and starts yelling at my husband for mowing other yards and she wouldn’t quit about it.
All our leaves are in the yard too. I love my leaf lake yard. It looks so pretty. We never cut down our trees and have planted some more.
Nobody yell at me but I do hope Rand Paul gets better soon. I don’t support him and I don’t support his ideologies either. Nobody deserves to be attacked like that.
I worked for an HOA (years ago) and the level of petty behavior was unbelievable. People getting into a snit about lawns, height of bushes (how are they measuring them? at midnight?), number of cars in the driveway (it was a family party for a baptism), on and on. Neighbors getting into rages about dumb stuff, stirring up nonsense, getting other neighbors to take their side, ugh. So much energy that could be funneled into more positive things. Ugly.
Who knows the truth, but don’t understand why Kaiser has trouble believing this might just be over lawn care. The ID Channel has an entire series devoted to crazy neighbors, some of whom have killed their own next door Rand Paul over silly stuff like this.
Yep! I watch it regularly and this crap happens all the time. Also, Rand Paul is a wee little fella. So is his neighbor. If he tackled him and they both fell to the ground, Paul’s rib could be broken rather easily. No need for it to be a violent attack. A simple tackle could do that.