Health-reform rally heckler says he's sorry and scared

Chris Reichert has apologized for throwing dollars bills at a man with Parkinson's Disease during a health care rally last week.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 12:19 PM
By Catherine Candisky
Columbus Dispatch

Chris Reichert has apologized for throwing dollars bills at a man with Parkinson's Disease during a health care rally last week.

The man who berated and tossed dollar bills at a man with Parkinson's disease during a health care protest last week says he is remorseful and scared.

"I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can't explain it any other way," said Chris Reichert of Victorian Village, in a Dispatch interview.

In his first comments on an incident that went viral across the Internet and was repeatedly played on cable television news shows, Reichert said he is sorry about his confrontation with Robert A. Letcher, 60, of the North Side. Letcher, a former nuclear engineer who suffers from Parkinson's, was verbally attacked as he sat before anti-health care demonstrators in front of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy's district office last week.

"He's got every right to do what he did and some may say I did too, but what I did was shameful," Reichert said. "I haven't slept since that day."

(Original here.)