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Professor Eric Clanton, Alleged Bike Lock Attacker, Hasn’t Been Arrested And May Not Even Be Guilty [Updated]

By Thea Conrad
Published on: 10:05 PST, Apr 21, 2017

Professor Eric Clanton, who is said to teach at Diablo Valley College near San Francisco, California, was allegedly caught on video slugging a Trump supporter over the head with a hefty bike lock, also known as a “U lock,” during the Berkeley riots that took place this past Saturday. The attack resulted in significant injury to the head of the victim, who is said to be a young man named Sean Stiles. Pro-Trump Twitter has been busy trying to get the word out about the still unpunished assault, and it was recently tweeted that Stiles plans on pressing charges against Professor Clanton, though there is no verifiable evidence to support this claim.

Most importantly, there’s no undeniable proof that the man seen hitting the Trump supporter is actually Eric Clanton. There’s been much speculation and digging regarding this Berkeley riot assault which have resulted in stories and accusations, but no certainties.

Furthermore, no verifiable proof has been presented to indicate that someone by the name of Sean Stiles was indeed the person we see getting smacked on the head with a bike lock in the video footage. Despite this, there are several social media and discussion forum users claiming that Sean Stiles is ready to press charges against Eric Clanton. There are also a handful of blog sites claiming in their headlines that Clanton has already been arrested, but at the time of this writing, there was no evidence to indicate that either of these things are true.

In the below tweet you can see partly how people came to their conclusions regarding Professor Clanton. However, nobody who was at the event has come out and specifically said they saw Eric Clanton assault someone with a bike lock. At this time the claims appear to be based on facial scrutinization between the bike lock attacker and images of Clanton available on the internet.

Jack Posobiec, a right-wing pundit associated with the alternative media organization The Rebel, is a primary source for where people are getting their information about this. Posobiec tweeted on Thursday that the supposed victim of the attack, Sean Stiles, planned on going to the police and holding Eric Clanton legally responsible for purposely smashing a bike lock against the left side of his head.

Several hours later, however, Posobiec sent out a pair of tweets that told a different story, saying that his “source” hasn’t yet pressed charges against Clanton because he’s leery of Berkeley law enforcement. Posobiec claims that Stiles said he reported the assault by Professor Clanton soon after it happened, but it was to no avail.

Rumor has it that Professor Eric Clanton’s identity was initially found by users of the forum site 4chan. There’s an archived thread (NSFW) dedicated to the professor.

Adding to the confusion of this scenario is the below tweet from the Politically Incorrect (/pol/) channel of 4chan, which seems to claim that Clanton recently purchased 14 bike locks, but the supplemented screenshots don’t support that claim.

The first shot shows a list of five items bought by Eric in 2016, none of which are bike locks. The second image shows that on April 20, he ordered 16 items that would be delivered the following day, but it doesn’t say what those items are. The last photo is a screenshot from 4chan in which a user is bragging about having hacked into Clanton’s Amazon account and purchasing 14 bike locks.

There is also no way to know for sure these screenshots were taken while someone was on Clanton’s account, as there’s surely millions of people named Eric with Amazon accounts.

The misleading nature of this tweet has suckered some, even reputable news outlets, into believing Eric Clanton had purchased bike locks prior to the Berkeley riots.

It’s impossible to know for sure if whoever tweeted the screenshots of Professor Clanton’s Amazon account purposely crafted the written portion to mislead those who didn’t take a closer look at the accompanying images, or if it was just a carelessly written tweet.

More accusations from people who seem convinced Eric Clanton is the guy who assaulted a Trump supporter with a U lock are posted across Twitter.

Some people are also convinced, thanks to Jack Posobiec, that the Berkeley mayor is Antifa-friendly and thus protecting Clanton from legal trouble. Professor Clanton has also been doxxed, as tweets containing his personal information were posted in the last day.

So far, no authority figures of any kind, including law enforcement and Berkeley city and college officials have mentioned anything about the attack.

[Updated April 24, 2017 12:06 p.m. EST]

A new video has surfaced which allegedly shows Professor Eric Clanton attacking another rally attendee during the Berkeley riots that took place on April 15.

The 45 second video plays a nine second repeat of slow motion footage. It’s unclear which person is Mr. Clanton.

It’s been reported by citizen journalists that Eric now has a lawyer to represent him in the event he’s caught.

An alleged self-described “anonymous tipster” posted to the Eric Clanton thread of 4chan on April 22. This person said that Clanton has gone ahead and, with the help of his family, hired a costly attorney in anticipation of being found and arrested.

One other development in relation to this incident has to do with the aforementioned allegation that Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin is a member of Antifa. Short for “anti-fascism” or “anti-fascist,” Antifa is a radical left-wing organization that thrives on violence and the shutting down of opposing viewpoints to get their message across.

BAMN protest in Washington D.C. on May 15, 2004. [Image by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images]

The anonymous tipster claimed that Clanton has mentioned Arreguin to his family to convince them that he won’t get in any real trouble because “the mayor of Berkeley is 100 percent on our side.”

Specifically, Arreguin belongs to an organization named By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), which is a subgroup of Antifa. According to their Facebook page, BAMN has already declared their intention to be at Berkeley on April 27, the day right-wing pundit Ann Coulter is scheduled to give a speech on immigration.

According to Breitbart News, BAMN is no stranger to law enforcement. Both the FBI and Department of Defense know of the group and as recently as 2009 BAMN were declared by the DOD to be terrorists. In the summer of 2016, BAMN rioters sent several people to the ER after a stabbing spree.

The fact that Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin is a part of this group has outraged many Trump supporters and increased gumption to get justice for the person behind the bike lock assault, which many are still convinced is Eric Clanton.

[Updated April 27, 2017 10:30 a.m. EST]

The people who believe Professor Eric Clanton to be the Berkeley bike lock attacker have gathered more “evidence” that he’s a violent Antifa member who regularly goes around assaulting random Trump supporters. To be perfectly clear, much of this supposed evidence is based on the belief that Clanton is the man seen slamming a U lock against a young male Trump supporter’s head. The victim of the attack is allegedly someone named Sean Stiles, though that still has yet to be officially confirmed.

More video footage has surfaced which ostensibly shows Eric Clanton attending other events like the one seen in Berkeley on April 15.

Twitter users are also busy trying to identify Antifa members seen with the man they believe to be Clanton.

Clanton is reportedly now under police investigation, though this information has not been officially substantiated by law enforcement.

Jack Posobiec, the person who widely promoted the 4chan allegations when they first came out, has apparently come across information that he believes gives the professor ties to radical Islam. He wrote of this discovery on the blogging platform Medium.

At this time, Eric Clanton is rumored to be in hiding. Word is that he’s nixed his social media accounts since being outed as the bike lock attacker. The manhunt for this guy by those who are certain of his guilt continues. Please check back here for updates on this story.

[Updated May 26, 2017 9:50 a.m. EST]

A separate article explaining the recent arrest of Eric Clanton in Oakland, California has been published. Please click here if you wish to view it.

[Featured Image by Everpedia/Resized/CC BY-SA 4.0]

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