On Friday, police announced that they have identified the man caught on video physically assaulting a field representative working for the conservative Leadership Institute on the UC-Berkeley campus — but have yet to release details about his identity, including if he is a student at the school.
In video posted on Twitter by Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk last week, as well as additional footage published by Campus Reform, which is owned and operated by the Leadership Institute, a man wearing a black T-shirt and carrying a backpack repeatedly attacks a smaller man, Hayden Williams, who was helping TPUSA recruit students on the campus.
The confrontation took place Tuesday at the Upper Sproul Plaza, where campus police were called amid reports that a conservative activist was being assaulted. The Daily Californian, the student-run paper that was the first outlet to report the incident, reported that police were told that at around 3:29 p.m. Tuesday two males approached the TPUSA table and began to argue with the representatives.
Follow-up reports have since noted that the argument appears to have centered around signs TPUSA were displaying saying “Hate crime hoaxes hurt real victims” and reading “This is MAGA Country,” references to the notorious Jussie Smollett case, which Chicago police say was a hoax.
When Williams began to record the increasingly belligerent conversation, the man in the black shirt grew violent, slapping the activist’s phone out of his hand, calling him “racist,” and threatening him — at one point even declaring that he’d “shoot” him, as Williams’ recording shows. – READ MORE