With the latest acquittal of a white former St. Louis police officer charged with the the fatal shooting of a black man following a high-speed chase, the city was thick with protesters on Friday.
The demonstrations were loud but free of violence at first. As the evening wore on, however, tempers flared heated and ultimately riot-gear-clad officers were forced to resort to tear gas to disperse the crowds.
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This is a story that has now played out too many times now to remember in recent years. Activists in St. Louis had threatened there would be hell to pay if former police officer Jason Stockley was not convicted in the death of Anthony Lamar Smith. The trial itself was of little interest or consequence to the black community or its sympathizers; no attention was paid to any of the testimony or the evidence presented. The only way that justice could be served in minds of locals would be for the jury to return a guilty verdict.
One of those sympathizers was an adjunct professor at John Jay College halfway across the country in New York. His name is Michael Isaacson, he is 29, and he is also a leader of the Antifa movement. He decided as early as Aug. 23 that all the Stockleys are guilty by dint of profession and tweeted out:
Some of y’all might think it sucks being an anti-fascist teaching at John Jay College but I think it’s a privilege to teach future dead cops.
Yesterday, Isaacson was placed on administrative leave. The New York’s Daily News notes:
The tweet caught the attention of police union officials after the 29-year-old anti-fascist leader appeared on Fox News Thursday night. Three union bosses and Police Commissioner James O’Neill slammed Isaacson’s tweet.
“As a 2x grad there, I know Michael Isaacson’s reprehensible values don’t represent @JohnJayCollege, #NYC, #NYPD or families of murdered cops,” O’Neill tweeted.
School president Karol Mason said the professor’s comments posed a danger to faculty and staff.
[…]
“I want to state clearly that I was shocked by these statements. They are abhorrent,” she said. “This adjunct expressed personal views that are not consistent with our college’s well-known and firm values and principles and my own personal standards and principles. I am appalled that anyone associated with John Jay, with our proud history of supporting law enforcement authorities, would suggest that violence against police is ever acceptable.”
Taking Isaacson out of the classroom, where he can poison minds with his radical rhetoric, is a start. But the only way it will gain a larger significance in the grand scheme of things is by the Left identifying and owning its role in fomenting the bitter divisions that currently define this country. In other words, it ain’t gonna happen.