That wasn’t very neighborly.
A group of protesters heckled Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi outside a screening for the new Mister Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.”
Video of the confrontation posted to Twitter by progressive activist Timothy Haberlein of Organize Florida, shows several people shouting at Bondi as she leaves the Tampa Theatre on Friday night, escorted by law enforcement.
“You’re a horrible person!” one person shouts.
Others questioned her recent actions on health care policy, including her February decision to join in a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act and her stance on immigration.
“What would Mister Rogers think about your legacy in Florida? Taking away health insurance from people with existing conditions?” yelled someone else, adding: “Shame on you!”
Protesters told the Tampa Bay Times they hadn’t planned to assail Bondi that night – until someone spotted her buying a ticket before the film and started asking her questions.
“[Another protester] approached her first and she was trying to engage with her and ask her difficult questions, and she felt uncomfortable answering the questions,” said Maria Jose Chapa, a local labor organizer. “And I guess she felt threatened because she called the police.”
The Tampa Police Department confirmed they were called in to escort Bondi out of the theater after the movie.
After the film, Chapa tried to engage Bondi in a conversation about health care and immigration – and that’s when other protesters started shouting, she said.
But a spokesperson for Bondi said the confrontation was more violent than the video posted by protesters showed.
“The video they are choosing to share is of the least aggressive portion of the attack that transpired after police arrived to control the scene. What they are not sharing publicly are several previous encounters involving large men getting in the Attorney General’s face, spitting and blocking her exit,” the spokesman, Whitney Ray, said in an emailed statement.
Chapa called that version of events a “lie,” that there were no large men in her party – though she conceded that she didn’t have “the poise or temperament” of Mister Rogers.
Fred Rogers, a beloved TV-personality who hosted the educational preschool series “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” died in 2003.
Bondi said the sudden protest was a sharp contrast to the lessons he imparted.
“We were in a movie about anti-bullying and practicing peace and love and tolerance and accepting of people for their differences,” Bondi said. “That’s what Mister Rogers is all about. We all believe in free speech, but there’s a big difference there.”
The confrontation happened the same night that President Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was kicked out of a Virginia restaurant on moral grounds.