Police in Laconia, New Hampshire arrested 70-year-old poet Stephen Redic on Wednesday morning after video surfaced showing him slapping an 18-year-old Turning Point Action member in the face outside a polling place a day earlier.
The Laconia Police Department took Redic into custody around 8 a.m. Wednesday and charged him with simple assault, a misdemeanor, and disorderly conduct, a violation. Laconia Police Chief Matthew Canfield told Fox News Digital the department had no record of prior contact with Redic.
According to a police press release, the confrontation happened Tuesday outside an elementary school in Laconia being used as a polling site. Redic approached a Turning Point tent as he was leaving, telling the teen he wanted to read him a poem about rich people. That poem does not appear in the video that later went viral.
The footage instead shows Redic growing increasingly agitated as the younger man tried to engage him in debate. Redic raised his voice, gave the teen the middle finger, and shouted at him.
“You sit there and dare to look me in the face and say I don’t know anything?” Redic says in the video, his voice hoarse, as he points his finger in the teen’s face. “That’s what I know,” he adds, before backhanding him across the face.
As he walked away, Redic can be heard saying, “f–k that s–t.” Bystanders off camera can be heard discussing whether to call police.
Turning Point Action identified the person who was slapped as an 18-year-old member of the organization.
Redic is a published poet. His 2023 book, “Tying My Shoes,” includes claims that he met every U.S. president going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
He is scheduled for arraignment on Dec. 10. It was not clear as of Wednesday afternoon whether he had retained an attorney, and he did not respond to an attempt to reach him for comment.
The attack happened just over 14 months after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University while appearing under a similar tent setup. Kirk also founded Turning Point Action, the group the teen in Laconia was representing. The man accused of killing Kirk, Tyler Robinson, is due in court Monday for a hearing that could set a trial date.
