Muslim students at UC Irvine are upset by the actions of an undercover FBI agent on campus, according to a report by Marla Jo Fisher in today's Orange County Register.
Here's Fisher:
This week, UCI's Muslim Student Union has been holding twice-daily speeches and rallies called “Israel: Apartheid Resurrected” to protest Israeli policies toward Palestinians. As part of the protests, students erected a mock wall near the student center.
UCI officials, citing university policy about large displays, have required them to take down the wall every night, requiring the help of many students due to its size and weight.
UCI economics student Yasser Ahmed said he was driving a borrowed truck up onto the Ring Road near the library loading dock Monday night, intending to haul away the wall, when he noticed a silver Ford Taurus with blackened windows following him.
Ahmed said he stopped the truck in view of other campus observers and stood in front of the Taurus, trying to look through the blackened windshield and asking the driver to identify himself. When he would not speak, Ahmed said he tried to take a photo of the car's license plate with his camera phone.
“He could have just rolled down his window and said, 'I'm an FBI agent,' and that would have been the end of it,” Ahmed said. “There was nothing improper going on.”
Instead, according to Ahmed, the driver revved his engine threateningly and began pushing him backward with the car's front bumper. Ahmed said he then began calling for help, and dozens of other students ran over to assist.
“I was frightened,” Ahmed said. “I felt I could have been killed or seriously injured if I hadn't jumped out of the way.”
If Ahmed's version is complete, it raises questions about the accuracy of a book I purchased years ago, Stealth: The angry man revving the Ford Taurus with tinted windows and fake license plates is not an FBI agent.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.