Police arrest man accused of attacking conservative activist at UC Berkeley
Police have arrested a man on suspicion of attacking a conservative activist on the University of California, Berkeley campus in an incident that was recorded and widely shared online.
Zachary Greenberg, who is not a UC Berkeley student, was arrested Friday and booked into jail, according to UC police. He is accused of punching Hayden Williams, also not a student at the university, on Feb. 19.
Many conservatives were angered that it took 10 days for police to make the arrest. President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. this week wrote on Twitter about the apparent delay: “Wonder if it would be the same if a conservative beat up a leftist on the Berkeley campus?”
Berkeley College Republicans posted a video of the incident on their Facebook page last week. The video shows a man cursing and punching Williams in the face in Sproul Plaza, the main gathering place on campus.
“Another conservative was brutally assaulted on our campus while recruiting for Turning Point USA by a tolerant, inclusive liberal,” the Republican club posted on Facebook. “This marks yet another incident where right-leaning individuals on the Berkeley campus have been put in danger for simply exercising their God-given rights to free expression.”
Williams is a field representative for the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit organization that trains conservative activists, he told Fox News. He had been invited to UC Berkeley to help Turning Point USA recruit members, he said.
A sign on the he manned on Sproul Plaza said “Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims,” referring to the recent incident involving “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who is accused of faking an attack against himself in Chicago last month.
“Every time I’ve gone to help students at Berkeley for various clubs, there’s always a student or a member of the campus community who will rip up our signs or flip over our table, but this is the first time it’s really escalated to this level of violence,” Williams said on Fox News.