Even as police across the country arrest more and more Antifa radicals for attacking cops, reporters, and those who oppose their revolution, one of them has escaped hard time despite a serious felony assault.
Eric Clanton, the former philosophy professor in California collared for a vicious attack in Berkeley, will spend three years on probation.
Clanton Identified
Clanton’s legal trouble began when he apparently decided Trump supporters didn’t have a right to free speech. The venue? A free-speech rally in April 2017 at Berkeley, known as the birthplace of the free-speech movement in the 1960s. Police arrested 20 thugs and confiscated dozens of dangerous weapons.
Clanton, formerly a professor at Diablo Valley College, viciously attacked a Trump supporter with a U-lock, splitting the man’s head open in front of a camera. As the Antifa cowards often do, Clanton wore a mask and thought he had gotten away with the crime. He had, that is, until Internet sleuths did the job that Berkeley police didn’t do.
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With a little hard work, right-wing activists identified Clanton and rightly demanded an arrest. According to Berkeleyside, Clanton “was charged with four counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, causing great bodily injury,” But he apparently attacked more than four people.
Police said … Clanton attacked at least three people with a metal U-lock during the April 15 rally in and around Civic Center Park. Court papers reveal, however, that Clanton struck at least seven people in the head, according to authorities. One person received a head laceration that required five staples to fix. Another was uninjured but had a piece of his helmet broken off. A third was struck across the neck and back, police said.
As for evidence, police found what they needed.
Detectives said they “recovered U-locks, sunglasses, a glove, jeans, and facial coverings” consistent with items worn during the April 15 assaults, according to court documents. And a camera found at the San Leandro home contained “selfies” taken by Clanton, police said, “with him wearing black clothing and facial coverings” consistent with April 15.
Police said in court documents that Clanton’s phone records placed him near Civic Center Park during the time of the protest assaults, too.
Police wrote that other photos they found showed Clanton “posing next to Anarchy symbols.” An “Iron Front” tattoo on his bicep, photographed while he was being logged into jail, “is associated with Anti-Fascists,” too, according to court papers.
On his OKCupid dating page, Clanton professed to “spend a lot of time thinking about REVOLUTION,” something any prospsective father-in-law will undoubtedly want to hear.
Homicide detectives handled the investigation, which might mean that Clanton was lucky they didn’t charge him with attempted murder.
Despite all that, Clanton somehow escaped with three years probation, Berkeleyside reported. He pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery. Prosecutors dropped the felony charges as well as the charge of wearing a mask.
Domestic Terrorists
Given Clanton’s attack, and what we’ve seen time after time, it’s no wonder the FBI has designated Antifa as a domestic terror group.
As Politico reported in September last year, “Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as ‘antifa’ had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as ‘domestic terrorist violence,’ according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.”
And Antifa goons “are the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets.” Even worse, some of these dangerous fanatics, Politico reported, have traveled overseas for military training.
In November, the FBI revealed that it is investigating Antifa and similar organizations, and in August last year, identified “Black Identity Extremists” as a possible domestic terror threat.
Antifa has gone beyond merely attacking its enemies in the streets. In June, it compiled and released the names and photos of 1,600 agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
After Berkeley police divulged the photos and names of the Antifa goons arrested after the second melee, leftist lawyers protested.
Photo: Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images
