Exclusive: Video Of Dan Schaetzle, Joe Layne Physical Altercation At GOP Meeting

by Casey | Nov 14, 2024 | Blog

This last Saturday, Nov. 9, the St. Joseph County GOP had their monthly meeting at Enzo’s in Mishawaka. They were celebrating their recent election victories. At one point, County Councilwoman Amy Drake was given some time to talk. She addressed some concerns with fellow County Councilman Dan Schaetzle, and told him she wanted to work with him on Council business. It’s no secret the two of them don’t get along. Dan was in attendance and heard what Amy was saying and he interrupted her and began yelling that she was a liar while angrily pacing back and forth.

Mishawaka Police investigating incident involving St. Joseph County GOP members

Dan Schaetzle sent out a newsletter explaining his side of the situation. In that newsletter, he called Amy Drake an “incredibly mean, hateful, vindictive, and power hungry woman.” He also defended himself against the things Amy Drake was saying.

Here’s a link to the text of his whole newsletter. I’d include the whole thing in this post but it’s 1849 words, and about a 12-minute read. So I’ll quote from it when necessary.

When she finished, I said, “It’s my turn now” and walked to the front of the room. I asked that I get the extra minute that I have always gotten to talk about Penn Republican Club. Sheryl Dawes tursley said, “No”.

In the video below, you will hear Dan Schaetzle ask for a full minute to discuss “school board.” He’s told “no” twice. He responds by saying “yes.” Dan Schaetzle then started criticizing other people that didn’t seem relevant to his response to Amy Drake’s comments. The video doesn’t show anything that might have prompted that.

After that, he moved on to address Amy Drake’s comments about him. He told the crowd his perspective on how he’s been treated on the Council, he complained about other people, and he complained about an alleged effort to get people to not vote for him. As he’s criticizing Amy Drake in his speech, a member of the audience asks him “how are you going to vote?” This question is relevant because Dan Schaetzle has parted with his Republican colleagues on several occassions and joined with Democrats on the County Council. The tax abatement issue was specifically brought up by Amy Drake during her speech on Saturday. Dan Schaetzle voted against it previously. This has caused friction within the party. There’s even been some allegations that Dan Schaetzle sided with Democrats on some of those issues as an “f-you” to Amy Drake and the other Republicans on the council. These allegations have even been supported by some of Dan Schaetzle’s supporters.

Dan Schaetzle has the right to vote how he wants. His constituents will decide if he did a good job or not. I’m only pointing this out because the GOP is divided on Dan’s reliability as a Republican on the Council. The friction between the two sides are best summarized that Dan’s side thinks Amy Drake is a mean oligarch (not much about her voting record or policy positions), and Amy’s side thinks that Dan Schaetzle sides with the Democrats too much and they can’t trust him.

After speaking for 2 minutes, Dan Schaetzle is told his time is up. He responds by saying “I’m gonna finish” and continues talking. He then says “finally, finally” as GOP Vice Chair Joe Layne approaches to reclaim the microphone. Dan sees Joe approaching and continues to say he’s going to finish his speech. Dan grips the microphone tighly to prevent Joe from taking it. Joe grabs the mic and pushes Dan using moderate force. Dan stumbles slightly and says “that’s physical attack.” At this point, people intervened to try to cool things off.

In the video below, I only included the beginning through the physical contact. I did not include Joe and Dan being talked to by others, or Dan getting escorted out. People in the video asked that I not include them. After the incident, Dan Schaetzle said “I was just attacked. I should be able to finish” while he continued to try to finish his speech without the microphone.

At this point there are some audible boos, and people saying “time’s up.” One person said “nobody wants to hear” but Dan continued to address the crowd. After being spoken to again, Dan repeats “I was attacked” several times then finally realizes it’s time to leave. He then says “I’m finishing on the way out” and starts slowly walking while trying to finish his remarks. It’s at this point additional people intervened to escort Dan Schaetzle out of the building after encouraging him to take some deep breaths and calm down. On his way out, Dan Schaetzle said he was willing to work with the next Council President saying “we gotta work it out.” There were a few people who applauded his remarks. There were others who applauded him leaving.

After Dan Schaetzle was calmed down and walked outside, the meeting continued without further incident.

I’m told several off duty police officers were there. Some of them, and many other people in attendance, said Joe Layne did the right thing. Others feel differently.

St. Joseph County GOP Vice Chair Joe Layne issued the following statement:

Amy Drake also issued a statement to Dan Schaetzle that is signed by Mark Root, Randy Figg, Joe Thomas. You can read it here.

Here’s the video of the incident. There are a couple of jump cuts that are all less than 1-second because people asked to not be included in this release.

I’m not condoning what Joe Layne did. I don’t think anyone can condone what Dan Schaetzle did either. This could have been handled better by both parties. I think the video makes it clear that there’s a lot of hyperbolic language being used online to describe what really happened.

Witnesses who talked to the South Bend Tribune seem to agree with my assessment.

According to Schaetzle, Layne shoved him after Schaetzle refused to yield the floor at the meeting, but eyewitnesses say the incident was not violent.

Around 7 hours after the incident, Dan Schaetzle filed a police report. The following Monday, he went to the emergency room. He says he was prescribed physical therapy for his pain.

It’s important to note that this is not the first time Dan Schaetzle has been involved in a physical altercation while on the County Council.

In April of this year, Dan Schaetzle shoved another man at the St. Pius informational meeting on the data center. He also allegedly “aggressively poked” another person according to numerous witnesses.

Above text was enhanced with an image enlarger to make text more legible.

While I think most people will agree that the recent incident between Dan Schaetzle and Joe Layne has been dramatically overexaggerated with hyperbolic rhetoric, people do have legitimate concerns when a single County Council member has been involved in multiple physical altercations while in office.

As for Dan Schaetzle, I hope his alleged injuries aren’t serious and he feels better soon. While Dan and I don’t see eye to eye much these days, I’ve always had pleasant interactions with his family who are caught up in all of this. I wish them all well.

I do have a question though … if Joe Layne pushing Dan Schaetzle is a “violent” and “vicious attack” that warrants a police report … then what is Dan Schaetzle pushing another man supposed to be?