An 82-year-old grandmother affiliated with the local Republican Party spat at and attacked a group of veterans during a press conference in Tulsa last Friday, after they vocally protested against the enforced use of religion in public schools.
The incident, which was captured on camera, took place at a press conference called by State Superintendent Ryan Walters on the grounds of Tulsa Public Schools’ administration building.
Videos by VICE
Attendees were there to show support for E’Lena Ashley, a Tulsa school board member who had been criticized by parents and her fellow board members for praying during a high school graduation ceremony in May. Among those attending the event were members of the local chapter of extremist group Moms for Liberty, which endorsed Ashley’s campaign for school board last year.
Also in attendance were Roberta Pfanstiel and her husband Carl, who were there to support Walters’ call for “religious freedom” in schools. Last month at a Tulsa School Board meeting he called for the promotion of Christianity and “Western heritage” in every classroom, including displaying the Ten Commandments.
At the event, the Pfanstiels were standing next to three activists from Veterans Defending Democracy, who were calling out what they saw as Walters’ hypocritical calls for “religious freedom” in schools.
During the event Pfanstiel, who lives in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, approached one of the activists, Bailee Tyler, who was sitting on the ground wearing a hat bearing the name of one of the activist groups she is affiliated with, Defense of Democracy.
“[Tyler] was on her knees, on the ground in front of me, and [Pfanstiel] came up from behind her and smacked her hat off of her head,” Erika Stormont, one of the three activists said in a podcast discussing the incident.
Much of the exchange was captured on video and posted online. In the clips Stormont, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 before becoming one of the Army’s first female cavalry scouts in 2015, told Pfanstiel that she cannot touch her or anyone else, and that if she does it again they would press charges.
At one point during the press conference a Christian pastor began praying, and at this point protesters called on Walters to allow a rabbi to pray also if he really believed in religious freedom, chanting “let him pray.”
“And it’s as we’re chanting that, again unprovoked, this woman comes up from behind my friend who’s still on the ground and it looks to me like both of her hands are going for her neck, her shoulders area, and that she made contact,” Stormont said.
In Stormont’s video, posted on TikTok, Pfanstiel’s husband is seen restraining his wife by holding both her elbows.
“As I turned my camera back to her and said: ‘That’s twice, you cannot touch people in public.’ She spits in my face and her saliva lands on my cheek,” Stormont said.
At this point in the video, Stormont is heard telling Pfanstiel to spit again because she has captured it on camera. “I know that’s a very inciting thing to say [but] when I say that, every single part of my body at that point was in fight flight [mode].”
Stormont says she drew on the training she had received in therapy about how to deal with such situations. “I refocused back to the event, I refocused on why I was there, and I ‘gray rocked’ her, which is a term we use when we talk about recovering from narcissistic abuse. You cannot give them any of your energy at that point. And I knew at that point we were going to be pressing charges.”
Stormont filed a police report online and received a tracking number, but told VICE News that she has not heard back from the Tulsa Police Department. She called the department this week to update them with the identity of the person who spat at her, after she had been identified by online sleuths, but had to leave a voicemail. The Tulsa Police Department did not respond to VICE News’ requests for comment on the case.
In total about 100 people attended the event according to Stormont, with about one third of the attendees opposing Walters’ and Ashley’s claims that the school board is being religiously intolerant.
Alongside members of the local Moms for Liberty chapter were prominent members of the state and county Republican Party, including Oklahoma GOP chair Nathan Dahm and Tulsa County GOP chairwoman Ronda Vuillemont-Smith. Moms for Liberty did not respond to questions about Pfanstiel’s affiliation with the group.
Pfanstiel, who deleted her Facebook account this week after VICE News contacted her, has in the past appeared in pictures posted online showing herself and her family with Dahm. One photo was taken in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol on January 6, 2021, to oppose the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections.
Dahm didn’t respond to VICE News’ request for comment but Vuillemont-Smith said the party “is aware of the allegations of assault that took place” and “while the party was not the organizer of this press conference, we are monitoring the situation.”
“The Republican Party of Tulsa County honors all veterans who served, and support the freedom of speech,” Vuillemont-Smith added. “We do not condone nor endorse violence of any kind, nor do we support actions or free-speech that disrupt and impede on others’ right to free speech.”
When asked if Pfanstiel is a member of the Tulsa GOP, the chairwoman said “all registered Republicans in Tulsa County are considered members of the Tulsa GOP.”
