UPDATE, FEB. 9, 12:08 P.M.: Chris Boyle, the CSUF College Republicans president, has pressed charges and a private person’s form for part-time lecturer Eric Canin’s arrest has been sent to the Orange County District Attorney’s office, according to a Daily Titan update of its original breaking story on the clash at the student protest Wednesday. Hayley Slye, the student newspaper’s editor-in-chief, also clarified for the Weekly that her paper did identify Canin by name in last night’s update, which went live before our post below did.
ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 9, 6:58 A.M.: Cal State Fullerton Republican club member is trying to get a part-time professor arrested for an alleged altercation that happened Wednesday during a protest over President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban.
But the instructor reportedly denies hitting anyone and claims he was grabbed.
University Police Capt. Scot Willey, who finds himself in the middle of this he said/he said story, says no one was injured, no citations were written, no arrests were made and that the investigation continues, the Daily Titan reports.
CSUF College Republicans President Chris Boyle is identified by the student newspaper as the person who wants to press charges against the part-time anthropology professor. The Facebook page of CSUF College Republicans identifies the professor as Eric Canin.
Boyle reportedly says he and fellow CSUF College Republicans members Jared Lopez and Bryce Ingalls were walking a safe distance behind Students for Justice in Palestine protesters at mid-day when the trio was confronted by Canin. The professor is accused of trying to grab away a sign the counter-protesters were toting and then started swinging in Boyle’s direction.
The Daily Titan quotes another professor who was at the protest saying he did not see Canin hit anyone, but he did see a student on the ground.
“A police report has been filed,” reads the CSUF College Republicans Facebook. “We hope that the university will do the right thing and terminate his employment at CSUF, as this is absolutely unacceptable. It is our hope that students of all political orientations are safe from violence when expressing their views on campus.”
Canin, who is not identified by name in the Daily Titan piece (*but was in an update last night), reportedly blamed the incident near the campus bookstore on the GOP students making fun of him when he accidentally ran into bicycles. While he does reportedly concede, “I lost it,” he denies touching anyone, claiming he was grabbed.
CSUF College Republicans and Students for Justice in Palestine had received permission ahead of time to march on campus Wednesday, according to Willey, who added that before the incident it had been a relatively peaceful protest and counter-protest over Trump’s executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.