Eric Clanton, the man suspected of hitting a Trump supporter over the head with a U-lock bike lock, has been arrested more than a month after the incident, which occurred during an April 15 clash in Berkeley between Antifa activists and Trump loyalists. According to East Bay Times , in addition to being suspected of assault with a “non-firearm deadly weapon,” Clanton is alleged to have “used a firearm during a felony with an enhancement clause.”
Eric’s bail is currently set at $200,000. He will be arraigned Friday morning at 9 a.m. inside an Oakland courthouse.
A video recording of the assault Clanton is thought to be guilty of was made available on the web in the aftermath of the April 15 Berkeley riots. As previously covered by Inquisitr , outraged Trump supporters made it their mission to identify the bike lock attacker, and with help from the Politically Incorrect channel (/pol/) of social forum 4chan, everyday citizens were able to single him out as likely to be the attacker shown on the footage.
Once identified, a few influential Trump supporters on social media started talking about Clanton as if he’d already been found guilty, which led to many people spreading untrue and/or unconfirmed information about the assault. Jack Posobiec, a reporter for the Canadian news network The Rebel , posted multiple click-bait YouTube videos and Twitter posts alleging false information. One such tweet claimed that the victim, who Posobiec said was a person by the name of Sean Stiles (this hasn’t been confirmed) was pressing charges on April 20, five days after the assault. This obviously never happened.
Social media users began passing around that Eric Clanton was the person in the video slamming a hefty bike lock over a young man’s head as the truth. People on Twitter referred to him as a terrorist and called for him to be arrested and charged with attempted murder.
The below tweets are an example of the misinformation being spread about Clanton. The tweeters wanted him to be fired from his job at Diablo Valley College, but he hasn’t worked there for years.
Fire Eric Clanton. He is a menace to society and needs to go to jail for attempted murder. Thank you.
— AtoZHarris ?? (@atozharris) April 25, 2017
Now that Clanton has been taken into custody, the courts can do their job, and the truth will come out.
In the below video, at about the ten-second mark, out of nowhere, a guy is hit over the head with a heavy instrument. The attacker hid behind bystanders while reaching out and slugging the victim over the head, then quickly left the area afterward.
The victim, who’s not yet been officially named (though according to web rumors his name is Sean Stiles), begins bleeding immediately, and people around him are obviously shocked at what they just witnessed.
The former professor worked at Diablo Valley College located in Pleasant Hill, California until 2015. He taught a mix of ethics, politics, and philosophy after obtaining a master’s degree in philosophy at San Francisco State and a bachelor’s degree at SCU Bakersfield.
Rumor has it that once Clanton figured out people on social media were talking about him, he went into hiding. A week after the attack, an anonymous user of 4chan claimed Eric had lawyered up in anticipation of being apprehended. At this time, there is no word on whether or not he’s hired an attorney.
Now that Eric Clanton has been arrested, those who’ve been following this assault from the beginning are rejoicing.
https://twitter.com/ali/status/867605165486075904
https://twitter.com/thomaswictor/status/867627119651602433
Police haven’t commented on social media’s role in the singling out of Eric Clanton, so at this time, there’s no way to know for sure if /pol/’s investigative work played a part in his arrest.
According to the Los Angeles Times , Reddit and 4chan users are keeping themselves busy by investigating the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich . It seems they don’t trust the police or mainstream media to do the work correctly, so they’re taking it upon themselves to find answers, just like they did in the case of Clanton.
This is a developing story. Please check back here for updates.
[Featured Image by Everipedia /Cropped/Resized/ CC BY-SA 4.0 ]