Abbey Winters, wife of Chattooga County, Georgia commissioner, Jason Winters, turned heads this week when she poured a soda drink over a person's head during a public budget meeting.
Casey Bryant, a local reporter, apparently had it coming after asking too many questions about the couple's Paris trip.
Bryant appeared at the meeting to cover the details from the meeting and to get answers for important questions from the public about the Chattooga County commissioner's recent expenses.
Questions had been on the rise after the Winters were married about where they got the money to go on an extravagant honeymoon trip to Paris. There were even rumors that the commissioner had taken funds from the county budget.
Presumably, Bryant hoped to either put these rumors to rest or blow them wide open from the contents of this meeting.
However, the meeting didn't quite go as planned. You might even say it got a little sticky.
You can watch the video here:
Wife of Chattooga Commissioner Assaults Reporter in Public Meetingyoutu.be
In the video, we can see three people, including Jason Winters at the head of the table, simply biding their time for the meeting to get underway.
Suddenly, what sounds like pouring water and ice can be heard, as well as gasps.
This is immediately followed by a woman saying:
"There you go. I'm sick of it."
There was an immediate rise in the room with reactions to this: gasps, Jason Winters pointing where it had happened, and mixed responses to who was right or wrong.
One woman, presumably sitting next to Bryant said:
"She brought it on herself."
Another woman responded with a shocked voice:
"By saying that he went to France?"
Another woman chimed in:
"Oh yes, b---h."
The first woman spoke again:
"No, you need to stop, girlfriend."
Another woman, possibly Casey Bryant, said:
"I need to stop? I need to?"
Based on witness accounts from the meeting, however, Bryant didn't exactly "have it coming." She had not done anything in the meeting that arguably could have provoked Abbey Winters to assault her with the drink.
Bryant also didn't escalate the situation after, either. Someone caught a picture of Bryant seated at the meeting table, covered in soda.
Immediately after the picture was taken, however, she gathered her things and left the meeting room. Her phone was still recording when she packed her things, though the last part of the video is muffled and only displays a blank screen.
Bryant came into the meeting with the expectation of clarifying the public budget and expectations.
The night before the meeting, Bryant wrote on Facebook:
"Fresh off his trip to Paris, he's ready to talk about the budget to the PUBLIC."
Abbey Winters received a warrant for her arrest after her confrontation with Bryant, with charges for disorderly conduct and simple battery.
Winters turned herself in to the police after receiving the warrant. However, she did not admit to the allegations.
Winters claimed that she had tripped in the meeting room, and upon tripping, the contents of the cup poured over Bryant's head.
Though Winters does not want to admit to it, there seems to be a lot of evidence that this was no accident.
Clearly, the Winters couple has not enjoyed the energy the news has put into covering their honeymoon in Paris and possible expenses, as well as the quantity of questions.
Abbey Winters' reaction seems pretty telling, though, and onlookers seem to agree.
Whether this particular act was aggressive or an accident, clearly Chattooga county still needs some answers about how their budget is being used.
The people deserve answers about whether Abbey Winters likes it or not.
@sama/X
