The man accused of assaulting a conservative activist on the University of California, Berkeley campus last month was arrested Friday after a warrant was issued. According to a statement from UC Berkeley Public Affairs, police arrested 28-year-old Zachary Greenberg and he was booked into jail on Friday afternoon.
UC Berkeley police say they arrested Zachary Greenberg. He’s suspected of assaulting a conservative activist on campus last month. #kpix #pixnow #ucberkeley #cal #berkeley https://t.co/uV9xvlYFfu pic.twitter.com/DQjbzXADuw
— KPIX 5 (@KPIXtv) March 2, 2019
According to the statement:
Today, an Alameda County Superior Court Judge issued a warrant for the arrest of the suspect in the matter involving a February 19 assault on Sproul Plaza. Zachary Greenberg was arrested by the University of California Police Department (UCPD) on the warrant and booked into jail at 1 p.m. UCPD will formally present the case to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for consideration of the filing of criminal charges. Once the matter is presented and reviewed by the District Attorney’s Office, additional information will be made available regarding a charging decision.
According to information obtained from Alameda County public records, Greenberg is 28 years old. He was booked into the Glenn Dyer Detention Facility in Oakland, California at 2:27 p.m. local time on Friday. Greenberg’s arraignment is scheduled for Monday at 9 a.m. local time. His bail was set at $30,000. Jail records show that Greenberg was charged under California Penal Code 245(A)(4) F, which is classified under assault and battery.
According to one section of the code, “any person who commits an assault upon the person of another by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, or in a county jail for not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.”
Greenberg was identified as one of two men who confronted Hayden Williams while he was recruiting for the conservative non-profit organization Turning Point USA on Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. Neither of the men is a student at the school.
Video footage of the altercation shows Greenberg, wearing a black shirt and pants, angrily accosting Williams, a campus representative for the Leadership Institute. He shouted obscenities at Williams and accused him of “encouraging violence” before knocking the phone out of his hand and punching him in the face. Williams ended up with a black eye and bloody nose. A Berkeley student passing by took the video below:
Another conservative student was assaulted on @UCBerkeley's campus. I just spoke to the survivor of the attack who is a dear friend of mine. He is in good spirits and plans on continuing to fight for conservative values on campus once his black eye is gone! What a bad a**! pic.twitter.com/g67Y9pAszD
— Bradley Devlin (@bradleydevlin) February 21, 2019
The campus announced on Tuesday that the UCPD was seeking a felony warrant from the Alameda County district attorney and that they would “immediately pursue the suspect’s arrest” if the warrant was issued.
In a statement to Campus Reform, Williams said he was grateful to the police for the arrest, but was disappointed in UC Berkeley for allowing “a culture of intolerance and violence toward conservatives to grow.”
I am grateful to the University of California Berkeley Police Department for its dedication to identifying and arresting the man who attacked me. But while this is a moment for celebration, I remain disappointed by the UC Berkeley Administration, which allowed a culture of intolerance and violence toward conservatives to grow. I hope UC Berkeley’s leadership will seize on this moment-in-time to take deliberate steps to establish a zero tolerance policy when it comes to violence, and restore Berkeley’s legacy as “Home of the Free Speech Movement.”
Williams told Campus Reform that he has retained California-based attorney Harmeet Dhillon for legal representation.
“I have retained an attorney and I will follow her counsel on next steps,” he said.
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