I'm not seeing the bit about where he says he'd understand about the people punching him in the face? In fact, he's saying that he wouldn't assign people to work with him for fear of that - which I would take to mean he disagrees with the action.
He's very clearly siding with the face-punchers.
That is wholly unsupported by any reading of his sentence.
He literally says he would avoid creating a situation where even the possibility of someone punching him in the face might happen. If he was siding with the face-punchers, why would he avoid that situation?