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Senate Armed Services chair takes pie in face

BIG RAPIDS, Mich. — A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman’s meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.

The senator took a question near the end of the Monday morning meeting in Big Rapids from a man who said he was a student, Levin’s office said in a news release. The man read a long statement, then a woman came up and hit Levin with a pie.

Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater on a felony charge of stalking, as well as misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct. She has no listed telephone number in Coldwater.

Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped “to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence [of war] as the Republicans.”

Mohsen was one of three protesters arrested in January 2009 after a sit-in at Levin’s office in Lansing, according to Michigan State University’s campus newspaper. She told the newspaper then that the group wanted the United States to begin cutting military and other support to Israel and call for an investigation of Israeli war crimes.

The earlier arrest, plus the escalation to a physical assault, formed the basis for the stalking charge, Officer Erik Small told The Associated Press. He said Mohsen was being held without bond and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

Police said the man who read the statement before Mohsen hit Levin with the pie and a woman who videotaped the attack also could face charges. Police do not have the videotape, Little said.

Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.

“They didn’t hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done,” he said in a statement.

The constituent meeting was sponsored by the Mecosta County Democratic Party. The city of about 10,000 is 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and 150 miles northwest of Detroit.