Big fight inside Berkeley’s “empathy tent”; 4 arrested

September 27, 2017 • 1:00 pm

Okay, now it’s time to just laugh about it all. Here’s a tweet from Dave Rubin, whom many here don’t like; but you have to share his mirth at the quote (see below) and four arrests taking place inside an “empathy tent”. The fights were a clash between Left and Right demonstrating over the cancellation of Berkeley’s “Free Speech Week”, which never really happened because the organizers were disorganized.

The quote that tickled Rubin’s funny bone is from a Fox News report:

David Marquis, who identified himself as a senior at the school, said he was tired of the protests on campus. Marquis was outside the protest area and described the scene.

“If you look at them, it’s ridiculous,” Marquis told the Los Angeles Times. “You’ve got a guy with purple hair with a f—ing lightsaber talking about Hitler. It’s hard for me to take any of this seriously.”

That made me laugh out loud. If you want the facts, SFGate has these, and more:

Berkeley police arrested three people after several fist fights broke out between liberals and conservatives when dozens of people gathered for a short time at Sproul Plaza Tuesday afternoon.

Members of a conservative group called Patriot Prayer arrived near Sproul Plaza around 2 p.m. and were met by protesters, including representatives of the leftist activist group By Any Means Necessary. Neither of the groups are student groups, and students and faculty — busy with midterms — did not appear to get involved in the rally or protest.

After the two groups scuffled inside an “empathy tent,” set up on campus to offer a calm space in what has been an area of violent clashes, they marched to People’s Park in Berkeley.

In this case both sides clearly were involved in the violence, this time with a 3:1 Right/Left ratio:

Police said Yvette Felarca, 47, of Oakland, was arrested for battery and resisting arrest; Ricky Joseph Monzon, 20, of Las Vegas, was arrested for carrying a banned weapon; and Eddy Robinson, 47, of Oakland, was arrested on charges of participating in a riot and resisting arrest.

At People’s Park, Patriot Prayer speakers, including Kyle “Stickman” Chapman, decried what he called a war on whites and said the ongoing demonstrations are a “battle for Berkeley.”

Chapman was arrested during a March protest and was charged in August with possession of a lead-filled stick. He faces eight years in prison, because of a previous violent felony conviction in Texas. He initially emerged as a hero for white supremacists, but later said he wasn’t a racist because he has an Asian wife. [JAC: Well that’s certainly proof!]

Felarca, the woman in Rubin’s tweet, is an Antifa-ite who had previously been arrested for punching a nonviolent alt-Rightie in Sacramento (see video here). She’s a teacher in a Berkeley middle school, and with two arrests and probably at least one conviction in the offing, she’ll likely lose her job.

I’m disgusted by anybody fighting and carrying weapons, and by both sides thinking they can hash out their views by literally punching each other—or worse. It solves nothing except to vent rage. But to think there was a big fracas in an “Empathy Tent” puts a veneer of humor over the whole thing, for at least nobody got hurt.

55 thoughts on “Big fight inside Berkeley’s “empathy tent”; 4 arrested”

        1. I was waiting for that name to come up. Two sisters in the target age group taught me that when the Cassidy programme came on the telly was a good time to go and get on with my homework.
          I can’t remember if Cassidy replaced, or was replaced by, the Bay City Rollers. I think they were all after the Long-haired Loathsomeness from Liverpool and the rest of that particular quiverful of paens to orthodontics.

          1. I wasn’t into BCR, but lots of my friends we’re. When I was ten one of my favourite items was my Donny Osmond ring. I also remember being enormously disappointed to discover he was a Mormon. There was no way I could marry someone with such a weird religion!

      1. And it’s not clear that when they go out looking for trouble that they are particularly discerning in choosing their targets. Random violence is random.

        1. I think it’s a case of “if you’re not with ’em, you’re against ’em” at that particular moment — so if you’re not physically part of that pack roaming the streets looking for trouble, you are automatically fair game. There must be studies on that kind of group behavior; happens all the time.

    2. Two boys want to duel. Okay, so then one kills the other. Now the parents and cousins want to fight. So they kill a few of each other. Now friendly neighbors are upset about that and want to fight…

      ‘Hatfield vs. McCoy’ fights inevitably drag in bystanders and make the entire area less safe.

      1. There would have to be some provisions for it, or else every boxing or MMA match would end with the fighters in handcuffs.

  4. Shades of the movie “Dr. Strangelove”. As I remember it, in one particular meeting scene, the Russian ambassador and a US general get into a fight. President Muffley, attempting to regain order, announces that “there will be no fighting in the war room”. Peter Sellers was brilliant as always.

      1. I think the general was attacking the Russian because he was snapping pictures in the war room.

    2. This made me think of The Trust Tree scene from Old School with Will Ferrell. “This is a safe place. It’s a place where we can feel free to share our feelings. Think of my office as a nest in a tree of trust and understanding.”

    3. Amazing! I was actually going to post that. But if I remember correctly the exact quote is “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the War Room!”

  5. For what it’s worth (FWIW),

    I read this entire post and only when I saw the very last instance of “empathy”, the one in quotes, .. so “ “Empathy Twnt” “, … did I correct it in my head from “empty”.

    I apologize for the tedium of that, but hey, I thought it was an unusual tedium…

    4. We used to call them shillelaghs. I dropped my Masai one into the glass umbrella stand yesterday and broke it – the umbrella stand, not the shillelagh – though the Masai had access to ironwood and so no need to go around drilling out the end of their blackthorn root and pouring lead into the end.
      Good tool for teaching about moments of inertia. That’s my excuse, anyway.

  7. Delicious irony.

    I’ve noted previously that I think Yvette Felarca is someone to watch and be very wary of. She’s very glib, articulate, but there’s something more, a kind of fierceness there that makes me fear she’d cut my throat in a minute, wipe the blood off the knife and go on about her business.

  8. I wish this would make these fu€kwit$ take a look at themselves in the mirror and see what a joke they are. Unfortunately, there’s no chance.

    Besides what “Jenny Hanvier” says in #7 is true. Despite their idiocy, they’re dangerous.

    1. When you look at the number of candidates, on all sides, you are going to need a bigger mirror.

  9. > Chapman was arrested during a March protest and was charged in August with possession of a lead-filled stick. He faces eight years in prison, because of a previous violent felony conviction in Texas. He initially emerged as a hero for white supremacists, but later said he wasn’t a racist because he has an Asian wife. [JAC: Well that’s certainly proof!]

    The twist is that Felarca IS Chapman’s wife and this is their understanding of therapy.

  11. Neither of the groups are student groups, and students and faculty — busy with midterms — did not appear to get involved in the rally or protest.

    Well, that makes me a bit happier than otherwise. Here’s one time the attack on free speech isn’t coming from Uni students.

  12. For some strange reason, this reminds me of the classic “you can’t fight in here; this is the war room!” clip from Dr. Strangelove:

  13. Isn’t Felarka the one who leads that creepy cult that hide behind “social justice” campainging?

    These are the types of loons that racists like Dan Arel thinks are his comrades.

    And “BasedStickMan”, what the heck is that about. Pathetic.

  14. I heard (though I think the primary source here is milo, can’t remember) that the university was deliberately slow to respond and so the student group wasn’t disorganized and doing paperwork (and finances) last minute but that it was forced on them by their emails being ignored for multiple days/weeks

  16. Given no one was hurt its pretty funny
    A similar sort of thing seems to be happening elsewhere
    “Sixty year old woman is shoved to the ground as fists fly in punch up between transgender activists and their extreme feminist rivals in Hyde”
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891484/Fists-fly-politically-correct-rally.html
    I can’t stand this movement to pretend gender doesnt exist whilst making claims based on it (unreal, unfair and ultimately dangerous to women) and the latest trans thing about letting trans males with a penis who say they identify as female but haven’t and don’t intend reconstruction surgery into women’s bathroom facilities.

  17. A mere four arrests is a pretty low score. An “Old Firm(*)” “friendly(**)” in July in Glasgow would get that many fatalities, let alone arrests.
    (*) Glasgow Celtic versus Glasgow Rangers, football clubs. Round ball.
    (**) The on-pitch score doesn’t count towards league rankings or whatever metric it is that football (any-shape) fans follow. I think. Quoth Marvin : “It gives me a headache to think down to that level.”

  18. I don’t know much about him, but it’s stupid that the press and others can’t understand the difference between a white supremacist and a white nationalist (though there indeed can be some overlap)

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