Despite Berkeley Denials, Claims Surface of Student Rioters

The folks at Berkeley are tripping all over themselves to distance the school from the riot that blocked speaker Milo Yiannapoulos last week. They’ve even claimed that only outside agitators, not Berkeley students, were responsible for the violence and destruction.

Unfortunately, that narrative seems to be unraveling as we speak:

The “anti-fascist” group has come out to refute the claims made by University of California, Berkeley professor Robert Reich and the university’s administration and the police that only “outside agitators” participated in the riot last week at the university, claiming the rioters were indeed students of Berkeley.

A site called It’s Going Down, which provides a “platform for revolutionary anarchist, anti-fascist and autonomous anti-capitalist movements“, has published a first-person account about the violence that erupted at UC Berkeley after Milo Yiannopoulos’ speech was cancelled because of safety fears.

The author of the article dismisses the statements made by people claiming Berkeley students didn’t participate in the riots or they were hired by Yiannopoulos himself, writing “Of course there were students engaging in militant and combative tactics that night.”

Both UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett and university spokesman Dan Mogulof have claimed that students weren’t involved in the riot, and Reich was the professor who suggested the riot was a “false flag” operation by Milo supporters.

One writer on the site claims to not only be a student:

As far as Robert Reich never having seen these people before? He’s an idiot and he’s full of s***. I myself have taken his class.

The dubious claims of clean hands are a salve to some on the left who don’t want to believe their movement is infested with violence, and cover to some who hope it stays hidden. Thankfully, many on the left have condemned the violence, yet others believe the rioting was appropriate.

All the rhetoric smearing the right for violence — violence against women, violence against gays, violence against minorities — despite no evidence is being exposed by reality. Pretending students weren’t involved won’t work when the students are proud to have rioted, and absolutely no one on the right is practicing the same behavior.

Maybe someday, a mea culpa will come from those who laid the foundation for today’s political violence with all those lies. A guy can dream, can’t he?