Politics can inspire people to engage in very bizarre behavior. One could say that it was strange for Romantic Depot, a lingerie store in Harlem, to place a mannequin resembling former president Barack Obama dressed as a prince standing next to another mannequin resembling current president Donald Trump dressed as a MAGA hat-wearing princess in its storefront window.
What may be even stranger is how 41-year-old Harlem resident Rewell Altunaga reacted to the display on the night of January 26.
Security footage caught the man pacing in front the of the Romantic Depot, appearing visibly angry, before taking a cinder block from a nearby construction area and chucking into the window. But the $1,000 in damages he caused does not seem to satisfy him, so he promptly turns back and pulls the Obama mannequin out from the shattered window, sending it to the sidewalk and falling to pieces.
According to Romantic Depot owner Glen Buzzetti, Altunaga, who was later arrested, was stopped by a store security guard before a group of witnesses surrounded him with violent intentions.
“We had to protect [the suspect] from the crowd,” Buzzetti told the New York Daily News. “He could have been killed. We had women trying to kick him in the head. We had to protect him because he had damaged the Obama image.”
The store owner added that the man “definitely was a Trump supporter who was very angry with Obama’s policies, and he kept on repeating it after he was caught that he hated Obama and Obama ruined the country.”
If his disdain for the 44th president was not clear enough, he had more to say.
Buzzetti recounted that Altunaga allegedly said,”‘That doll was giving me bad looks. I’m tired of him. Obama brought the country down.’ He said he walks by the store every day and sees Obama every day and it made him really angry.”
Hmmm. And we thought that Obama supporters were supposed to be the snowflakes.
What do you think? Do you think this man’s assertive political activism should earn him a medal, or a straightjacket? Let us know in the comments below!
