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NEW YORK -- A New York jury has acquitted a 24-year-old man accused of heckling Laura and Jenna Bush and assailing a wheelchair-bound teenager and her family.
The New York Post reported June 17 a Manhattan Criminal Court jury acquitted Gary Talis June 16 on assault charges stemming from an April 2008 incident in which Talis allegedly attacked a family following a New York appearance by the wife and daughter of then-U.S. President George W. Bush. The Bushes were in New York to talk about their children's book, "Read All About It."
Authorities had accused Talis of shouting obscenities at the Bushes before attacking John Lovetro's family at the event.
Lovetro testified against Talis during his trial, as did Lovetro's daughter and wife Wendy. The Post said several New York police officers and one Secret Service agent also offered testimony against Talis.
At the time of the incident, the Post reported Talis allegedly started punching Maureen Lovetro (pictured), who has cerebral palsy, on the shoulder blades after John Lovetro told him to shut up. When the father pushed her wheelchair away, Talis allegedly reached past him to strike her on the thigh.
The two men then allegedly fought as the Bushes drove off.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From UPI:
