Clarification

A silly blog post at 24th State is claiming that the UMSL students we interviewed about an incident last Saturday were "bearing false witness." Here's what the post had to say:

Up first was an anonymous woman who used charged language to assert that Sharp tried to violently enter the classroom, but was held back by Giljum, who was trying to protect his students.

They then claim that Adam Sharp's video proves the student wrong. Actually, the description of the student's claims from the 24th state blogger (probably Ben Evans) was false. What the student actually said is the following:

I heard this commotion in the hall, and I looked over to a fellow student and the fellow student asked me "did you see what happened?" and I said "No, what is going on?" He said "it sounds like a fight's out there," and that's when Don came in and what trying to keep the man out...now this man appeared to be crazy because he was trying to come through the door. Don was trying to keep the man out of the classroom and was shouting at the man "Stay out!" And the man tried to come through the door, the man put his hands up like he was going to try to block the door to keep it open while he had a camera in his hand and he was taking pictures of us. And at that point I was just so shocked at what was going on... that this crazy man was trying to get into the classroom...Don was trying to protect the students and keep this crazy man out of the classroom and we were just all in such shock that finally Don got the door slammed. He came in and said they're trying to get in...and thats when Judy, I guess, a police officer came into their room...

Now if the student had said that Sharp "tried to violently enter the room," as 24thstate suggests, then I could see why they'd say that the video shows that the claim was false. However, what she said was that Sharp tried to enter the room, looked crazy, and held a hand up like he was going to try to block the door from closing, and there's nothing in his video that shows that any of those claims are false. In addition, his own video shows that he did film students inside the classroom and posted the video on youtube without their permission. So 24th state is, as usual, clearly wrong.

At Activist Hub, we have described Sharp's behavior in various ways, based on what we heard from the interviews. At times, we've said that he tried to get into the classroom or tried to "barge in" on the class. Again, the video seems consistent with these claims: Sharp appears to be following Giljim into the classroom until Giljim slams the door. On the other hand, the suggestion that Sharp tried to "break in" to the room does at least seem to be inconsistent with the video, although even this claim might be true if he was holding his hand out like he was trying to stop Giljim from closing the door. Anyway, the main points remain the same:

Sharp went to the UMSL campus specifically to pester the instructor and students. In fact, the public announcements all stated that Giljim was not even going to be in class.

Sharp was trespassing on the UMSL campus in a building that's supposed to be restricted to students, faculty, and staff.

Sharp appeared to be trying to follow Giljim into the classroom.

Sharp filmed students in the classroom.

Sharp pestered students as they left the classroom.

Sharp's friend Ben Evans dared students to "take a swing" at him as they were waiting outside the police station to see what happened.

All pretty clear examples of obnoxious behavior from the tea party, after they were already caught lying about the content of the course.