Gloria Allred is repping the two audience members who were “wounded” by Michael Richards’ tirade at the Factory. The Chicago Sun-Times Richard Roeper has a summary of the whole mess:

As for the two men who say they were the targets of Richards’ rants, how refreshing that they’ve stepped forward to say they forgive Richards and they have no wish to exploit this incident for publicity or money, and they hope everyone will soon move on to more important issues.

Yeah, right.

Frank McBride and Kyle Doss reportedly have retained the services of Gloria Allred, the attorney/publicity hound who never met a satellite TV appearance she didn’t like. (Who’s going to show up next to exploit this, Jackie Chiles?)

Allred says Richards should meet with her clients face to face and there should be some kind of hearing about monetary compensation.

“It’s not enough to say ‘I’m sorry,’ ” said Allred.

“Our clients were vulnerable. He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive.”

Really? I thought he did it in the Laugh Factory, where they walked out after they were insulted.

Question: Are we hearing Frank McBride and/or Kyle Doss on the infamous cell phone video? Because somebody says to Richards, “That was uncalled for, you f—— cracker-ass m———– … F—— white boy. We’ll see what’s up.”

Not that I’m excusing Richards’ rant in any way, but that’s not the ideal response to a racial taunt, is it?

Allred wants the parties to sit in front of a “retired judge” and determine whether or not her clients should receive money from Richards. An AP account says that Allred “pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit.”

Retired judge? A way to avoid a lawsuit? If Allred actually had a case, why would she take it to an arbitrator (her “retired judge”)? We’re no attorneys, but if there were damages of some sort, actual damages, or if there were laws broken, her clients would have recourse in a criminal or civil court. No one in the media has called her on this retired judge nonsense and no one has displayed even the slightest bit of alarm at what effect this kind of genteel extortion might have on free speech. And why is Allred lying to the Matt Lauers of the world by saying that her clients were “held captive?” And why aren’t the Matt Lauers of the world laughing in her face when she utters such nonsense?

Of all the reactions out there, this one is the most dangerous when it comes to artistic freedom. For the seventeenth time, we’re not defending what Richards said. But since what he said was not a violation of any laws, his speech is protected, no matter how disgusting you may think it is. As comedians, we all have a stake in the way this plays out.

Allred’s proposal reminds us of “Eagles Court” the description of which is taken from Wikipedia’s entry on Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium:

The Eagles fans’ behavior during a Monday Night Football loss to the San Francisco 49ers in 1997 and a Dallas Cowboys game a year later was such that the City of Philadelphia was forced to assign a Municipal Court Judge, Seamus McCaffrey, to The Vet on game days to deal with miscreants removed from the stands. Rowdy fans were held in the teams executive offices prior to appearing in McCaffreys “courtroom”, a converted storage room in the stadium basement.

Of course, both the offending comic and the aggreived (or “wounded” in Allred’s words) audience member would be brought before the judge in Allred’s Heckler Court. (Note to club owners: The judge would probably bang the gavel and award the entire table’s drinks to be comped. Now does Allred’s crusade seem threatening?) If she’s still a member of the Friars, they should bounce her on principle.