When you’re a convicted sex offender, it’s gotta be hard enough to come and go from your home without the snide comments and outright taunts. But for Tim Russo, who torched his own budding blogger cred a few years back by soliciting a 13-year-old boy for sex (“Unforgiven,” Free Times, May 2008), it must have been like walking the gauntlet as he floated through the few thousand who gathered Wednesday afternoon for Cleveland’s Tea Party on Mall C.
Russo’s warts-and-all video coverage of a Sarah Palin rally in Strongsville last year went viral. He also taped the previous Cleveland tea party. And he’s written on his blog about his checkered past. Still, Russo was pretty much incognito until he stuck his camcorder in the face of 47-year-old Larry Phillips, a tall black man holding an American flag like a spear, and asked him, “How do your parents feel about you being here?”
Granted, he was one of the few black men in sight. But Phillips was having none of Russo’s wanna-be Michael Moore schtick and went on a counter-offensive, following Russo around and charging him with racism.
“My parents and grandparents had to fight to have the freedom that I have to be here, wherever I want to be, today,” he told Russo at one point. Then somebody told Phillips about Russo’s conviction, which prompted him to add that bit of information to his taunts. Russo tried to skulk off, but Phillips followed, chiding him all the way.
Finally, Russo turned on Phillips and came face to face: “Suck my cock,” Russo said flatly, to which Phillips gleefully shot back, “That’s a light snack for a cat.”
An onlooker joined the game: “We’re not sending for a search party or anything,” the guy said, aiming his camera lens at Russo and snapping away. (Editor’s note to that guy: We’d love to see that shot.) Then Phillips landed his best blow: “Aren’t I a little old for you, anyway?”
Russo shook his head and parted the crowd in another direction this time, but Phillips continued to follow and taunt him. So Russo hustled off to Lakeside Avenue and flagged down a cop.
A few minutes later, with Phillips standing near the curb, still with his flag, Russo pointed him out to the officer. “He just threw me out!” Russo stammered. “I did not,” Phillips replied. “He can be here if he wants.” And so the cop merely says, “Well, then, that’s the end of it,” gets back in his car and pulls away.
Russo throws his hands up, walks back into the gathering. “He was threatening me,” says Russo, “following me around and screaming about my criminal conviction.”
Aw. Maybe he shoulda called for a wahhhmbulance.
After the cop left, Phillips kept following Russo until, eventually, he disappeared for good. Phillips stood sentry at the back of the crowd with a big satisfied smile on his face. “Hey,” he said matter-of-factly. “Nobody made him leave. But if he can ask questions, so can we.” — Dan Harkins
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2009.
Thanks for telling this side of the story. I am Phillps’ brother, and I watched in great pride as larry took on that JACKASS. Russo, like many liberals, is really a racist. Oh, he stands for all the “right” liberal causes, but he thinks Black people who don’t think like HE thinks they should, and stay in their place, are Uncle Toms, sellouts, etc. rUSSO SHOULD KNOW THAT WE ARE NOT COWED BY RACIST, boy-loving WHITE TRASH freaks LIKE HIM. mY BROTHER ruined HIS DAY. oH, BY THE WAY, rUSSO IS AN acorn HACK, TOO. tHAT’S EVEN LOWER THAN A KIDDIE PORN SENDING loser!!!!! gOOD JOB ON THIS ARTICLE. kEEP IT UP!!!
TIM RUSSO SEX OFFENDER. That says it all. Pedophile porno loving freak. That is what Tim Russo is. Google it for yourself.
I was “interviewed” by Dim Russo at the event. He of course sliced and diced the video to make it look like I did not know why I was there. When I posted on his blog and invited him to speak at a YR meeting (which I would make sure was a civil and respectful talk and exchance) and take questions from the audience, he deleted my comment. Dim is a coward, a fraud, and has not an ounce of integrity. I have met many on the Left/Progressive side willing to have honest debate and discourse on the important issues of our day in a reasonable manner, Dim is not one of them.
Joe Amschlinger, President
Greater Cleveland Young Republicans
Poor sad SEX OFFENDER TIM RUSSO. His daddy did naughty things to him at night. His mother helped. Now he is a middle-aged boy-loving freak! So sad. One day he will be found wearing women’s panties, with a gun in his mouth. Dead. Suicide. Sad Timmy. No one wants Dim Tim Russo. Douchebag.
W-O-W!
“He paid his debt to society!”
Can’t a sex offender get a break at a public event?
I wonder if any federal agents posing as children were present. (he claims no children were involved in his crime)
Would YOU let him around your kids? (Apparently his sister does.)
No one mentioned his being kicked of CWRU radio program OR having the plug pulled on his facebook (he has since snuk back on fb)
Or RUMORS of embarrassing photos obtained from his serial postings on Craigslist in the M4M hook-up section BEING guarded by Cleveland Newspaper Editors like Fort Knox.
His trouble Alll the way across the pond with the British labour party where they hired him, he didn’t pay INCOME taxes for ANY of the socialist programs they so need and BLAMED the BLP for THEIR incompetence FOR HIRING HIM!
He was kicked off the Obama canvasing team as a volunteer. Would you want him canvasing in your neighborhood?
Listen, it should be obvious that some form of mental illness controls this persons life and he has a sexual addiction and drug and/or alcohol addiction and that potentially interferes with his psychotropic medication and treatment because he claims to self medicate with alcohol and marijuana.
Would anyone want him around their kids, college students, friends, neighbors or even enemies?
Or their staff, with other employees?
In their volunteer groups?
On their airwaves?
The only dark corner he has, is a basement somewhere in a warehouse district, pirating a wi-fi signal to trash everyone and everything and pull it down to his disgusting level and post his videos while multi-tasking through hook-up websites while he hopes and prays they will go “viral” so his life of anonymous partners, will have meaning.
It is painfully obvious that he is a deeply wounded individual seeking significance in the world. The problem is, will he end up incarcerated as a repeat offender as he copes or be committed, OR BOTH!
Something needs to be done because he is a time bomb and will destroy anyone and everything close to him once he “goes off.”
He is quite brave with his video camera in hand heralding his freedom of speech and this has proven that he cannot hide behind that camera (and the internet) for too much longer. (and that he IS an elitist wanna be and a closet racists)