Wisconsin State Senator's Account of Alleged June Attack Contradicted by Audio Recording

Legislator's Karen story as victim falls apart

Madison, Wisconsin — An audio recording obtained by a local radio station in late June contradicts a rightwing Wisconsin state senator who has turned his late-night encounter at a black liberation protest into a cause célèbre.

State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) has portrayed in social media and in other venues an allegedly unprovoked, assault and battery, though Black Lives Matter and other protestors have for weeks disputed this account privately.

An eight-minute audio recording, posted at WORT Radio (Madison) and available since June 24, contradicts Carpenter's story that he has repeated to national and local news, and widely disseminated recently on social media.

Carpenter is a rightwing Democrat from Milwaukee who worked for decades to further the drug war against minorities, going so far as to kill marijuana reform during the 2007-2011 period when Democrats enjoyed unified control of the legislative and executive branches of state government.

On the audio, Carpenter can be heard protesting that he is a state senator, referencing friends who have worked in past protests from different decades.

Protesters can be heard pleading that they felt threatened, and explaining to Carpenter they have been "shot at," "arrested" and "run down" by hostile players, including white supremacists and police.

Several voices, apparently including Carpenter's, can be heard apologizing.

Carpenter's story later changed as he garnered national media attention, and lately he has taken to social media to support his black-folks-came-at-me story.

Carpenter's actions are known in the vernacular as Karening — using a sense of white entitlement to seek police action against perceived enemies, by advancing a false narrative or a false account.