(Reuters) – A woman who threw a shoe at Hillary Clinton as the former U.S. secretary of state was delivering a speech in Las Vegas has been released from jail, and faces possible charges after her arrest for disorderly conduct, officials said on Friday.
Alison Michelle Ernst, 36, was released on her own recognizance just before midnight on Thursday, said Tess Driver, a spokeswoman for the Clark County District Attorney’s Office. Ernst has not been formally charged but is scheduled to appear in court on June 24, Driver said.
Clinton was giving a speech on Thursday at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas when a protester who was not a ticketed guest and was being approached by Secret Service agents threw a shoe at her, said Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie
Video news footage showed Clinton, 66, a potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, move to crouch as a flying object flew past her on stage.
The former secretary of state later joked about the incident, asking if it was part of a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show.
Las Vegas police arrested Ernst on suspicion of disorderly conduct, said police spokesman Officer Jose Hernandez. Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge Ernst in the incident, Driver said.
In many parts of the world, throwing a shoe at a political figure is a form of protest. In 2008, a shoe was hurled at then-President George W. Bush when he appeared at a Baghdad news conference with the Iraqi prime minister.
Clinton, who lost the Democratic presidential nomination to then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008, said at a marketing conference in San Francisco earlier this week that she was thinking about running for president again in 2016.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Jonathan Oatis)
FULL VIDEO: Hillary Clinton dodges a shoe on stage
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gq7pw3Nypk[/youtube]
