Mullet Festival stabbing "victim" arrested

FLORIDA: "A man stabbed at the 2007 Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival is now in jail.

James Walter Suttles, 18, of Florala, Ala., has been charged with burglary to an occupied vehicle with intent to commit a battery. The man who stabbed him will not be charged.

“Things that seem apparent aren’t always true,” said Lt. Dave Popwell with the Niceville Police Department.

An investigation by the Niceville Police Department found that Ryan McCurley, 18, of Florala, stabbed Suttles in self-defense after he climbed in McCurley’s truck and began to hit him in the face, according to an arrest report.

Suttles’ account of the Oct. 21 altercations that happened between him and McCurley match that of other witnesses.

Suttles recognized McCurley at the Mullet Festival and approached him to start a fight, the report said. Both men were escorted to the police command post where their names were taken and they were given trespass warnings for the rest of the weekend festival.

McCurley and his two passengers were getting in his truck when Suttles jumped inside. McCurley told police he pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed his assailant in the chest. Someone who had parked nearby the scuffle pulled Suttles from the truck and onto the ground. Witnesses say Suttles ran from the scene, according to the report.

McCurley called the Walton County Sheriff’s Office to report the fight. An unidentified caller phoned police to report Suttles was walking around the Mullet Festival parking area, bleeding.

Suttles told authorities he didn’t realize he had been stabbed until someone asked him what happened and he looked down at the blood on his shirt. He had suffered a punctured lung and was taken by helicopter to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola.

Popwell said McCurley did nothing wrong by stabbing Suttles.

“It’s the same as in your home. You don’t have to take that from anybody,” Popwell said."

Two things of note; The word 'victim' derives from the Latin victima, or sacrificial animal. The Yellowstreamers love describing anyone with a boo-boo as a victim, regardless of how said injury was sustained.

Its a given that the media is in love with victimhood, but the unusual part of this story is the fact that a police Lieutenant stood up for a man who used a deadly weapon to defend himself.

Thank you, Lieutenant Popwell. Took a lot of guts to stick up for anyone who'd attend a Mullet Festival.