The aggressive punch-throwing man whose finger was bitten off at a health reform rally in California last night now has a name: William J. Rice. And chances are, he won’t be charged with a crime.
That’s according to Capt. Ross Bonfiglio, a public information officer with the Ventura County Sheriffs Department, who I just spoke to. Bonfiglio said Rice — an anti-reform protester whose severed finger was reattached last night courtesy of Medicare — is 65, lives in Newbury Park and has cooperated with sheriffs deputies.
Bonfiglio said his department has a description of the accused finger biter — a pro-reform demonstrator who Rice punched before the biting — but hasn’t identified a suspect yet.
Rice told sheriffs deputies that the biter left the much larger pro-reform rally across a busy intersection in Thousand Oaks, CA, last night to have words with Rice at a small anti-reform rally that had set up across the street. Rice — who our eyewitness said was aggressive and much bigger than the pro-reformer — told deputies that the smaller man insulted him. “Rice says he felt threatened,” Bonfiglio told me, “and decided to punch the guy in the nose.”
The pro-reformer then got up off the ground, the two fought, and the pro-reformer bit Rice’s pinky finger off.
Rice told deputies he assumed his finger couldn’t be salvaged, so put his injured hand in a towel and walked to a nearby hospital. Another man reportedly picked up the severed pinky and brought it to the hospital, where it was reattached.
Bonfiglio said that while specific charges will be up to the district attorney, he thinks the biter will face a felony mayhem charge, with Rice facing a misdemeanor assault charge at most, and perhaps nothing at all.
“He’s more a victim at this point,” the captain said, even though “he was admittedly the primary aggressor.”
“Nothing’s black and white in a case like this,” he said, noting that proportion can matter just as much as the order of events.
“If Rice was the initial aggressor and the guy cut his head off, it doesn’t mean it was justified.”
Late Update: I just got Rice on the phone. He said he’s not speaking to the media. His brief statement before hanging up: “Surely there’s more important things in this world than me getting my finger bit off.”
Later Update: There was some confusion earlier about whether Rice’s finger was reattached or not. We’ve talked to the hospital — his finger was not reattached.
