Ex-cop in ‘Make Fifty Great Again’ birthday hat punched at Nashville bar, police say
A retired New York City cop says a Tennessee bar patron punched him last week because he was wearing a birthday hat that read “Make Fifty Great Again,” which the patron apparently assumed was a pro-Trump “Make American Great Again” cap.
Daniel Sprague of Staten Island wrote on Facebook Monday that the attack happened in Nashville during a surprise birthday trip that his wife planned for him with his friends and family.
Sprague said the group went to a bar called The Stage, where he also wore a shirt that read “Making America Great Since 1970.”
Some patrons at the bar on Broadway appreciated the hat.
“People were just coming up to me and, you know, just loving the little word play on the hat and taking pictures and wishing me happy birthday,” Sprague told WSMV.
But then one woman wheeled Sprague around, punched him in the face and snatched his hat — shouting “how dare you!” according to Sprague, which led him to think the attacker assumed he was sporting the sort of “Make American Great Again” hat that President Trump popularized during his 2016 election campaign.
“The bouncers immediately led us out opposite exits and when I stated I would like to press charges they informed me she left,” Sprague wrote on Facebook, adding that he filed a police report the next morning and is waiting to hear back from Nashville detectives.
Sprague told WSMV that “she gave me a really nice little gouge — I would assume she had a ring or maybe a set of keys or something, because it is pretty deep and it goes to the bone.”
Sprague shared photos of the hat, T-shirt and his injured face on Facebook.
Nashville police confirmed that Sprague reported the attack, according to the New York Post, which quoted a police report as saying the “suspect grabbed his hat from his head and punched him in the face. He stated that when the suspect hit him in the face, he did not hit her back.”
Sprague, a former member of the New York Police Department’s Emergency Services Unit, said that “I love Trump, but I wouldn’t hit someone who had a Bernie hat on,” according to the Post.
“At first I thought it was a friend until I got hit,” Sprague said of the woman who spun him around, per the Post. “I couldn’t believe someone could get that upset.”
Sprague told WSMV that “people have different views, but we’re not supposed to take it out on each other.”
Police said the reported attack happened on a night last weekend around 10 p.m., the Staten Island Advance reports.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Ex-cop in ‘Make Fifty Great Again’ birthday hat punched at Nashville bar, police say."
