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Jim Seida / msnbc.com
Sam (who declined to give his last name at the time), speaks to local media after protestors in a Mayday march in downtown Seattle smashed out the rear window of his car as it sat on 6th Avenue, May 1.
Sam of #findsam has been found.
A day after the search began for the mystery tourist who complained to Seattle television reporters that May Day vandals had slashed his car tires -- and that others had yelled at him to "go back to Canada, hoser" -- he has been located, KING5 TV reported.
Seattle tourism officials were looking for Sam, hoping to offer him an all-expenses paid trip to Seattle.
On Tuesday, Sam told television reporters that his family had been visiting Seattle, only to have their car windows smashed and tires slashed by protesters.
“Welcome to Seattle, eh?” Sam told KING5 with no small amount of cynicism. “Well, maybe there’s a reason why I don’t want to live in the States."
Read the original story at King5.com
Officials from the Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau announced they wanted to find Sam but all they knew was his first name and that he drove a newer black Hyundai. And so KOMO TV reporter Lindsay Cohen asked the twittersphere to help her out.
"Vancouver: help find Sam, tourist whose car was smashed in #seamayday violence," Cohen wrote. "Seattle wants to help."
Anthony Bolante / Reuters
Masked protesters smashed the storefront of an American Apparel store during May Day demonstrations in Seattle.
Within a day, a reporter with the Vancouver Province found Sam. He is Samuel Lee of Vancouver, a pastor at Lighthouse Ministries. Lee said he didn't know about the social media campaign, and he declined to comment.
Cohen said Seattleites would like to make up for his negative experience.
“I don’t know if you can after the fact, but they would certainly like to try,” said Cohen.
As for the person who called Sam a "hoser" -- slang for "idiot" or "loser" in Canada -- he, too, has been found. Jake Ricker, a bike messenger who was on duty, told KOMO News Radio that he thinks it's "insane" Lee would be offered a free holiday.
"I was like, whoa man, like I’m just standing here," Ricker said. "Sorry that happened to your car but, I mean, I had nothing to do with that. And he was, like, in my face saying my friends and I needed to get back to get back there and pay for his damage."
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Just more proof that at the heart of every Liberal is hatred and violence
"every Liberal"? does the neo-nazi friend of the Arizona State Senate leader who just killed his family and himself say the same about "every Conservative"?
I didn't really expect you to see the forest, or even admit that the forest exists...but there is a difference between DNC / Liberal orchestrated and choreographed violence and an Individual being a nutcase...just so you don't embarrass yourself in the future, Neo-Nazi, as were the original Nazis, are at their heart Socialist with a hatred for the rich and capitalism
But yes maybe, just maybe, "every" might have been 1% away from the whole truth (veiled reference to the 99%)
So you are still being fooled by Hitler's little trick of including the word socialist in his party's name to undermine the real socialist an communist parties he was competing with. You do, of course, know that the Brown Shirts, the original storm troopers of Hitler's party, spent their formative years beating up socialists and communists as well as Jews, Catholics and gays. History is obviously not a subject with which you have any familiarity, nor is political science. Fascists, such as the Nazi party, are quite the opposite of socialists.
Fascists (Nazis) are often charaterized by finding some "other" to balme everything on. as in, we white people cant find a job because of all those brown immigrants, or women, or gays, or before that... but never admitting that it their own lack of intelligence or knowledge that is holding them back. That is when they turn to violence, and in the case of Russel Pearce's budy, kill their own family. For the sake of the children of these ignorant and delusional people, we can only hope they don't have too many guns around, or have the usual right wing lack of skill and shoot themselves before they hurt anyone else.
In Vancouver they only riot like this when the Canucks lose.
In Vancouver they only riot like this when the Canucks lose.
An unfortunate casualty in the May Day protest. I am glad to see he is being compensated for it though.
No one deserves for their car or any possession to be vandalized. Especially if you are a vacationer spending your money in the vandals city. That sucks for him and am glad hey are helping him out. This has nothing to do with him being a Canadian or what he drives. It's the principle of the matter at hand. These vandals make normal Americans look like ass holes. Grow the eff up!
It smells funny to me. What would people demonstrating against the power and privilege of plutocracy have against a Hyundai driving Canadian?
Why are we always apologizing to foreigners, I never see thoseforeigners apologizing to us in their country—And Wawa to Sam --don't like Seattle don't go there—How many American who suffered the same fate got their expenses paid for..
On Krystalnaught, The Socialists Germans broke the glass storefronts of the "rich Jewish shopkeepers". On May 1st, the liberal Socialists broke the glass storefronts of the "rich evil corporations". Can a comparisson be made?
Rioting and vandalism is not an expression of free speech. These people running around calling themselves anarchists would survive about 30 seconds under true anarchy. They are too stupid to see that without the law, they would be fair game.