Confronting the Campus Revolutionary Wannabes
Mario Torres is in the front line for the defense of civilization. Torres is the Columbia University janitor pictured defending Hamilton Hall from invading barbarians last week. The iconic photo of him pinning a protester against the wall became an instant social media meme. Now, the unassuming Torres wouldn’t describe himself this way. If you listen to an interview he gave to the Free Press, he goes out of his way to say he’s an average New Yorker who now is concerned for his family. But if you really listen to what he’s saying, you instantly understand the significance of what took place that day. The contrast between the everyday American turned suddenly by circumstances into a hero and the assailant breaking the law couldn’t be more stark. The protester he pinned is himself a poster boy—for everything reviled in America. He is 40-year-old millionaire anarchist Cody Tarlow, also known as James Carlson or Cody Carlson, a violent trust-funder with a long history of Marxist agitation, whose late parents were megadonor ad executives, and whose trophy stepmother is now dating singer John Mellencamp.
It was the day the bicoastal elite/celebrity/activist set met a Yankee fan. As Torres put it, “It just so happens that they stormed my building. And I was there.” Torres describes the Columbia campus prior to the protests as “beautiful, always manicured.” He added, “We always felt safe.”
Then the protesters came to campus, he said, and everything began to feel uneasy. After they took over Hamilton Hall, he quickly realized the attackers knew what they were doing. The surveillance cameras, high in the ceiling and hard to reach, were all immediately covered. “These guys were pros,” Torres told the Free Press. In words that perfectly describe society’s dilemma right now, Torres said, “You don’t have a plan. They have a plan, you don’t.”
The Canada Free Press quotes New York City Police Department officials as saying that Tarlow is a “longtime figure in the anarchist world.” The New York Post, quoting a source at City Hall, writes that the millionaire’s rap sheet “dates back to at least 2005, when he was charged in San Francisco for participating in the violent ‘West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.’” So we are dealing with a violent protester who is just a very rich anti-capitalist who has exhibited anti-social behavior for years but whose money, and our increasingly weak law enforcement apparatus, has allowed him to roam our streets free.
Columbia janitor reveals secret plans left behind by anti-Israel protesters who took over Hamilton Hall armed with zip ties, chains. Henry Clemente, a head custodian for Columbia, told The Post that he discovered secret plans left behind by the highly organized rioters. These included hand-drawn floor plans and supply lists noting locations of barricading equipment; a “task list” with items including setting up a pulley system and “security shifts” and even a schedule listing the times of the Muslim call to prayer.
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