Mizzou Professor Melissa Click Caught On Video In Confrontation With Police
Newly emerged video purports to show suspended University of Missouri Professor Melissa Click in a confrontation with cops during the school’s Homecoming Parade on October 10, 2015.
“Get your f*****g hands off me,” she appears to scold a cop in the police body camera video.
Click became nationally famous or infamous when she was filmed on November 9, 2015, attempting to censor a group of student journalists who were covering the anti-racism protest on campus by the Concerned Students 150 movement. She could be seen telling one student that he “needs to get out” while calling for “muscle” to block the student journalists from being able to cover the protest on the Columbia campus.
“I need some muscle over here,” the communications professor, who ironically was teaching in the journalism department at the time, yelled to her cohorts in the viral video.
The Mizzou professor’s apparent disregard for the student journalists’ First Amendment rights sparked outrage across the entire country and attracted a mountain of attention on social media, as the Inquisitr previously explained.
She was subsequently charged with misdemeanor assault over the incident and was suspended by the school (with pay) two days later pending an investigation by higher-ups.
An apologetic Click recently told local media that the “muscle” incident was an anomaly and that “I’ve never been involved in anything like this before.”
The latest video may seem to contradict that statement.
Police video shows Mo. prof. Melissa Click facing off with cops https://t.co/zhVhqtzGsL pic.twitter.com/B9DvxiUhGR
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) February 15, 2016
“The new video, which is from two police body cameras and was obtained through a public records request by the Columbia Missourian, shows the school’s Homecoming parade in October, where demonstrators blocked then-system President Tim Wolfe’s vehicle,” the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported.
University of Missouri Interim Chancellor Hank Foley issued a statement yesterday about the newly unearthed Melissa Click video.
“Last night, like many in our community, I watched newly released footage of Dr. Melissa Click directing a verbal assault against members of the Columbia Police Department during the homecoming parade in October 2015. Her conduct and behavior are appalling, and I am not only disappointed, I am angry, that a member of our faculty acted this way. Her actions caught on camera last October, are just another example of a pattern of misconduct by Dr. Click—most notably, her assault on one of our students while seeking ‘muscle’ during a highly volatile situation on Carnahan Quadrangle in November. We must have high expectations of members of our community, and I will address these new revelations with the Board of Curators as they work to complete their own review of the matter.”
Mizzou’s Melissa Click told police ‘get your f**king hand off me’ at prior racial protest https://t.co/OqBQzcrBnT pic.twitter.com/h9PbxP4fGr
— The College Fix (@CollegeFix) February 15, 2016
The professor also recently hired a public relations firm to improve her online image.
In an interview with the Missourian, “Click admitted she made a mistake and said she would ‘fight to be treated fairly’ as she moves to regain her job. As part of her suspension, she has been banned from setting foot on the MU campus.”
Wolfe stepped down as Mizzou president on November 9 under pressure from the protests in part because of a hunger strike by graduate student Jonathan Butler.
“[Chancellor] Foley referenced body camera footage in which Click steps in between a police officer and MU graduate student and activist Jonathan Butler,” the Missourian explained after obtaining the new footage through a freedom of information request.
Critics have charged that Mizzou and many other universities across America have become politically correct bastions whose inclusion efforts don’t extend to diversity of opinion.
At the time of Melissa Click’s suspension in January, Concerned Students 1950 declared in a statement that she became “the victim of social and political violence,” and that “The University of Missouri System is devoting time to tarnishing Click’s career instead of dismantling the oppressive RACIST social system it perpetuates.”
[Photo by Mark Schierbecker/AP]
