Kamenetz: I Did Have My Rabies Shot

County Executive Kevin Kamenetz Tuesday used a news conference on rabies shots as an opportunity to joke about a confrontation between himself and seniors who heckled him at a school groundbreaking in Mays Chapel.

"Contrary to popular belief, I did have my rabies shot last week at Mays Chapel," Kamenetz said.

Attendees of the groundbreaking on Friday and television viewers may have been wondering after video on several news websites showed the executive angrily confronting seniors citizens who came out to heckle him.

"Sir let me talk for a second, ok?" an animated Kamenetz shouted at the hecklers. "It's my job to talk and your job to listen right now."

[See a short video shot by WMAR television and WBAL TV has a longer cut.]

Don Mohler, a spokesman for Kamenetz, said last week that the county executive became irritated after the protesters, who he described as senior citizens, became loud after a number of children were introduced during the event.

"Elected officials are human," Mohler said. "I think most people understand that elected officials are human not robots and have emotions like everyone else.

"Shouting down a groundbreaking is just not the way we ought to be going about [a protest]," Mohler said.

In an interview Tuesday on WBAL TV, Kamenetz offered an additional explanation.

"I shouldn't have let them get under my skin, so to speak," Kamenetz said. "But I've never really seen seniors heckle kids over a school. You would have thought we were trying to put a prison or a methadone clinic there."