Occupy Wall Street protesters sought to physically assault conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe when he came to New York City to document their behavior, according to private listserv emails detailing their conversations and plans.
O’Keefe recorded a video in Zuccotti Park on October 10, causing a flurry of Occupy Wall Street protesters to email each other trying to determine how to handle his presence. “He’s well connected and has brought down entire organizations before,” warned protester Linnea Palmer Paton. “Watch out.”
In response to Palmer Paton’s warning, protester and New York University journalism professor Stephen Duncombe suggested, “It’d be great to punk him, but with his style of editing the possibilities are slim. Probably best just to shadow him at all times with a video recorder.”
Duncombe added that protesters might want to “pull his [O’Keefe’s] pants down.”
Duncombe is an associate professor in New York University’s department of Media, Culture and Communications.
O’Keefe told The Daily Caller that Duncombe’s behavior is unacceptable, especially from a university faculty member. “He is a journalism professor advocating assault to advance his ideological agenda,” O’Keefe said.
On the same email chain, another activist echoed Duncombe’s call to violence. (ALSO ON OCCULIST: Protest organizer planned to financially commodify the revolution)
“Shadow him at all times with a video camera,” Beka Economopoulos wrote. “And maybe pull his pants down.”
Economopoulos works for nonprofit organization “Not An Alternative,” which describes itself as an art collective aiming to “affect popular understandings of events, symbols and history.” The group has promoted and helped instigate the Occupy Wall Street protests.
