Report From Occupied America: Free The Mizzou Two!
05/26/2010
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On April 29, the dangerous Mizzou Two—white ROTC students at University of Missouri Columbia ("Mizzou"), freshman Sean D. Fitzgerald, 19, and senior Zachary E. Tucker, 21—pleaded guilty to littering. They were sentenced to two years of probation, 80 hours of community service, and had to surrender their drivers' licenses for 60 days.

The foregoing were not typos.

On February 26 at, numerous cotton balls were found strewn on the ground outside Mizzou's Black Culture Center. Fitzgerald and Tucker were arrested on felony "tampering" charges. That, too, is not a typo.

"University police say it's too early to say if the incident qualifies as a hate crime, but say they're looking at surveillance video to find more clues," is also not a typo. [Mizzou discusses racist display on campus, KRCG (CBS) 13, March 2, 2010.]

The Cotton Balls Of Hate

In a statement to the press, University of Missouri Chancellor Brady Deaton denounced the atrocity as "a disheartening and inexcusable act."

"Those guilty of this despicable action have not yet been identified, but MUPD became involved immediately and is conducting an investigation. This university is fully committed to tolerance and respect for every one of its members, and this kind of conduct will not be tolerated at MU."

The Columbia Daily Tribune continued,

"Deaton urged anyone with information about the incident to contact police 'and join me in expressing your own individual concern and support to the members of our community who were the apparent targets. … MU celebrates the diversity of our community and this behavior offends us all.'

 "The statement also said that the Legion of Black Collegians has scheduled a town hall meeting for 5 p.m. Monday at a location to be determined…."

[Deaton decries cotton incident; town hall meeting set by Jodie Jackson Jr., Columbia Daily Tribune, February 27, 2010.]

On March 3, the Mizzou campus Police Department announced, regarding Fitzgerald and Tucker,

"Both were arrested for one count of Revised Missouri Statute 569-090 Tampering in the second degree class D Felony due to sentencing provisions under Revised Missouri Statute 557.035 Hate crimes - provides enhanced penalties for motivational factors in certain crimes.

[Statement on Arrest Related to Incident at Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center, University of Missouri-Columbia Police Department, March 3, 2010.]

(See also here.)

For the initial "tampering" charge alone, Fitzgerald and Tucker faced a possible five years in prison each. That could have been increased through hate crime enhancements, elevating the Two's crime to a "class C Felony."

In other words, Fitzgerald and Tucker could have ended up serving more time behind bars for "littering" than your average murderer,—who serves only five or six years.

Prior to being arrested, Fitzgerald and Tucker were midshipmen in Mizzou's Naval ROTC program. But that's all over now. Each young man also had to post a $4,500 bond, in order not to rot in jail while awaiting his show trial. Due to the black racist prison tradition of gang-rape and sexual slavery routinely committed against white prisoners, and the ensuing AIDS infections, convictions in the case could have been tantamount to death sentences.

For "littering".

Let's review the incident:

According to a public letter drafted by their lawyers, during the night in question, the inebriated midshipmen committed

"'a series of foolish acts' that included riding a Missouri tiger statue on Francis Quadrangle, hurtling another statue at Memorial Stadium and hoisting a pirate flag at the ROTC building."

"Tucker has met with Nathan Stephens, director of the Black Culture Center, to personally apologize. Stephens said he accepted the apology and offered to help mentor Tucker in cultural sensitivity."

[2 MU students apologize for cotton ball incident by Stephen Deere, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 6, 2010.]

In best Al Sharpton style, a graduate assistant employed by the Black Cultural Center, Marcus Mayes, called the Two's racial groveling, "a start."

Fitzgerald and Tucker sound like a couple of goofy, normal college boys to me. Unfortunately—though there's nothing on the law books outlawing it—being a normal college boy has become a felony for whites. If you don't believe me, just ask the Duke Three.

Let's look at the Missouri statute for "tampering."

"Tampering in the second degree.

569.090. 1. A person commits the crime of tampering in the second degree if he or she:

(1) Tampers with property of another for the purpose of causing substantial inconvenience to that person or to another; or

(2) Unlawfully rides in or upon another's automobile, airplane, motorcycle, motorboat or other motor-propelled vehicle; or

(3) Tampers or makes connection with property of a utility; or

(4) Tampers with, or causes to be tampered with, any meter or other property of an electric, gas, steam or water utility…"

[Robbery, Arson, Burglary and Related Offenses, Chapter 569, Section 569.090, Missouri Revised Statutes.]

Can one of my lawyer-readers help me out here? I do not see how anything Fitzgerald and Tucker did falls under any of the subsections, including (1). They did not "Tamper[s] with property of another," much less "cause[ing] substantial inconvenience to that person or to another."

The authorities were simply pulling charges out of a hat. Why not just shoot the Mizzou Two for, oh, I dunno, jaywalking? (This Kafkaesque madness has me talking like a libertarian!)

There is no record, after Fitzgerald and Tucker's arrest, of Chancellor Deaton criticizing the school Police Department for arresting them under false charges, much less of his defending the Two's constitutional rights. There is also no record of him denouncing recent violent crimes committed against Mizzou students on and off-campus by blacks —at least one robbery at gunpoint of a man, one robbery-assault of a coed, another robbery of a coed, and one disfiguring assault of a male student—plus one stomping committed on campus by one, or more likely two, raceless perpetrators. (There was even one assault carried out by two "white men" against "two white males", the only time victims were racially identified.)

Let's compare the Mizzou Two case to that of another Mizzou student who was sentenced to two years' probation earlier this month: Tommy Saunders.

 Tommy Saunders, Non-Hate Criminal

Last November, Saunders, a former star wide receiver on Mizzou's football team, punched a current Mizzou student in the face with such force that he gave his victim a "broken nose" and "a concussion, a chipped tooth and broken bones in his face." [Saunders to serve probation for assault, Columbia Daily Tribune, May 13, 2010.]

According to the Daily Tribune report, Saunders "received a suspended sentence of 15 days". During his two-year probation, "he must report arrests or summonses within 48 hours, cannot enter any bars and cannot contact the man he punched". And he "was ordered to pay $967.55 to the man and pay court costs." (In pre-diversity America, when a convict violated his probation or parole, he was immediately imprisoned, to serve out the remainder of his sentence, in addition to being prosecuted for his new offense.)

If Saunders serves out his two years' probation for the vicious, disfiguring assault he committed, his conviction will be expunged from his record. In contrast, the Mizzou Two's conviction will be on their record forever.

And, unlike the Mizzou Two, not only does Saunders not have to surrender his driver's license—but he has been permitted to travel abroad for his job, playing on the U.S. national rugby team. Local sports blogs have hushed up his violent criminal history.

Did I mention that Tommy Saunders is "black"?

Some commenters on the thread of  the February 27 Columbia Daily Tribune story noted the overkill character of the arrest of, and charges against Fitzgerald and Tucker, none grasped the full ramifications. The only one who came close was lewis56usa:

" …you've taken a big giant leap down the slippery slope to establishment regulated speech and thought control. When that happens, there is a far greater loss of freedom for everyone than some minor racial slur.

"This may have been a racist incident, but the far more racist aspect of this article is the fact that an institution such as the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center exists. What do you suppose would happen if someone organized and secured funding for a White Culture Center? Or if they had a White History Month? Or a white TV network? Or Miss White America? Or a United Caucasian College Fund? Or the NAAWP?

"I'm thinking there would be a lot of people crying racism from the rooftops.

"Racism goes both ways, and one is just as ugly as the other."[February 27, 2010 at 8:41 p.m.]

According to the Mizzou authorities, the cotton balls were a reference to slavery, and the act of spreading them constituted mockery of Black History Month. But at press time, I had failed to find any laws in the Missouri or U.S. codes forbidding the mocking of Black History Month.

The Mizzou Two's lawyers crafted a strategy of racial groveling, in order to save their clients from prison. The Two denied that race had anything to do with their "crime". Tucker's lawyer, Christopher Slusher argued, "There are some very serious questions about whether the felony hate crime statute applies. We're confident that this is not a felony."

Before you condemn this groveling, consider that Fitzgerald and Tucker's plea was coerced, through the heaping of one phony charge on top of the other. And although Fitzgerald and Tucker had engaged in symbolic expression protected by the First Amendment—remember that according to Supreme Court precedent burning the American flag is not a crime—no civil liberties groups came to their aid.

 Local prosecutors have instead turned the law on its head, arguing that it was the Mizzou Two's alleged mockery of Black History Month that makes what they did a "hate crime". But according to the Supreme Court, it is their very mockery of Black History Month that makes what they did constitutionally protected speech.

Given that Black History Month's function for blacks and their non-black allies is to spread lies about history, stage race hoaxes, terrorize whites, and later leverage such abominations, I maintain that one cannot mock it enough.

Criminalizing the mocking of certain individuals and groups is incompatible with a free society. But racially-motivated blacks and their white leftist allies have sought to impose tyranny on whites ever since the Civil Rights Movement began. Through hate crime hoaxes, blacks project their own racial hatred onto whites, and express their totalitarian will to power.

The Mizzou Two's depiction as racist monsters was typical of a wave of particularly hysterical journalistic propaganda (also here) which has gripped America this spring.

Although Fitzgerald and Tucker are not presently in prison, I entitled this article, "Free the Mizzou Two!" because they are still convicts, still under the supervision of Missouri criminal justice officials, and can be sent straight to prison on any pretext. (They won't get a diversity bonus.)

The Mizzou Two case continued the practice of governmental persecution of whites for engaging in speech or symbolic expression that is protected under the First Amendment that we have seen in cases such as those of Brian Swetnam, Jeremiah Munsen, Janice Barton and Lonny Rae.

The interests of justice demand that the Mizzou Two immediately be pardoned, their convictions expunged (and thus their probation eliminated); and that the state officially apologize to them.

Missouri Gov. Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon (a two-time Mizzou grad): e-mail link / Governor's Office: (573) 751-3222.

University of Missouri (Columbia) Chancellor Brady Deaton:  

Phone: 573-882-3387 | Fax: 573-882-9907 | E-mail: [email protected]

Nicholas Stix [email him] lives in New York City, which he views from the perspective of its public transport system, experienced in his career as an educator. His weekly column appears at Men's News Daily and many other Web sites. He has also written for Middle American News, the New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Chronicles, Ideas on Liberty and the Weekly Standard. He maintains two blogs: A Different Drummer and Nicholas Stix, Uncensored.
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