Barking Sen. Candidate Takes Punch In Face 'For America'

CAMBRIDGE, MA — A man was arrested Monday for physically attacking one of the controversial candidates vying for Sen. Elizabeth Warren's seat outside an event in support of Warren. Great Barrington Police arrested Paul D. Solovay, 74, of Hillsdale, New York and charged him with assault and battery and disorderly conduct following the incident.

Ayyadurai a Belmont resident who Boston magazine dubbed "The Shock Candidate" in a profile last summer, graduated from MIT, where he was once a liberal activist. Now he campaigns from a refurbished school bus with slogans painted on it. Earlier this year Cambridge attempted to make Ayyadurai remove the sign from the bus that he has parked in Cambridge, but the MIT grad took the city to court. After Cambridge let him keep the sign, he dropped the lawsuit.

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Just before 1 p.m. Sunday, Solovay was in a line of people waiting to head into a theatre where the Warren event was to be held. Solovay got out of the queue and confronted Shiva Ayyadurai, who was addressing the crowd from across Castle Street using a bullhorn-style microphone, calling Warren a "scumbag."

Solovay then got in a verbal confrontation, police said.

"That became physical when he pushed the bullhorn toward the speaker, striking his mouth," according to police. Ayyadurai captured the incident on video and posted it to social media.

In the video Ayyadurai is shown shouting into a bullhorn. He calls Warren a "lawyer lobbyist."

Someone appears to shout back at him that he's a racist, to which Ayyadurai shouts back: The video appears to show the candidate with the blowhorn accusing those standing in line of white privilege and racism.

The video shows a man with white hair pointing and yelling at the candidate from afar.

The clip jumps to showing that man up close to Ayyadurai.

Ayyadurai is shouting "racist, racist, racist" into the blowhorn over the man as the man yells back at him. The man, presumably Solovay, can be seen reaching into the blowhorn and pushing it. Someone off camera appears to charge at the older man with an umbrella as Solovay takes steps backward and falls into the street with what appears to be an Ayyadurai supporter pushing him there.

The clip jumps forward again to someone is heard saying "I want to press charges."

Another portion of the clip shows Ayyadurai shouting:

"You don't know what racism is, look at you. You never experienced it," to the crowd. "I was just hit in the face... when I called him a racist," he says into the camera.

Later Ayyadurai posted photos of his hospital bracelet and noted he now has chipped teeth from the incident. He also tweeted "I will take a punch in the face ANY DAY for America & free Speech;"

Police officers who were standing by, came over and took the older man into custody. He was scheduled to go to court the same day.

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Photo by Jenna Fisher /Patch Staff. She can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna)