A woman rushed past security and threw a shoe at
Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas on Thursday, but it missed and the former
US secretary of state laughed off the incident.
The
woman launched the projectile at the 66-year-old former First Lady as
she was addressing a meeting of the Institute of Scrap Recycling
Industries (ISRI).
Clinton, the presumed frontrunner
for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, ducked as the object
whizzed past at head height to the left of her.
"What
was that, a bat?... Is that somebody throwing something at me?" Clinton
said initially at the event at the Mandalay Bay hotel/casino, according
to video footage by the local KTNV station.
Regaining
her composure and sense of humor, she added: "Is that part of Cirque du
Soleil?" -- a reference to the acrobatic dance troupe, which has several
shows in Vegas.
"My goodness, I didn't know that solid
waste management was so controversial. Thank goodness she didn't play
softball like I did," she said, drawing laughter and cheers from the
audience.
The blonde woman who threw the shoe was
immediately escorted out of the hall, her hands in the air. She was
later arrested, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
A spokesman for the organizers said the woman was not accredited for the meeting.
"Our
staff denied her access before she later rushed past security. An ISRI
staffer then stopped her as she approached the stage. She was then
handed over to law enforcement," ISRI spokesman Mark Carpenter told AFP.
He
added: "We are grateful that Secretary Clinton continued in a
professional manner to share her firsthand knowledge and experience of
how the recycling industry has a positive impact on the economy and
environment."
A spokesman for Clinton did not immediately respond to request for confirmation or comment.
The
most famous shoe-thrower of recent years was the Iraqi journalist who
hurled his own footwear at president George W. Bush at a press
conference in Baghdad in December 2008.
Muntazer
al-Zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a head of
state. That was reduced to one year on appeal, and his sentence was cut
further for good behavior.
In February 2009 a German
research student threw a shoe at Chinese premier Wen Jiabao during a
speech at Cambridge University. Martin Jahnke, 27, was cleared of
committing a public order offense.