The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - State Police In Riot Gear Arrest UVA Protestors; Protest Or Civil Disobedience - What Went Wrong

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: State Police In Riot Gear Arrest UVA Protestors Protest Or Civil Disobedience – What Went Wrong Did UVA Prez Jim Ryan Poorly Manage Protest? Will Protests Impact/Tarnish UVA Graduation? Cities With Most Expensive Homes In Virginia Homeless No Longer Sleeping At Draft Taproom Virginia Hoops Lands 1st Transfer Portal Commit UVA Coach Brian O’Connor, Tomorrow, 1015 AM Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Monday afternoon, guys. My name is Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville show. It is a Monday afternoon. We are two miles, less than two miles from the University of a peaceful protest that quickly became far from peaceful and now is in the national news cycle and now has 25 protest participants that have been arrested and banned from grounds. I want to unpack what happened on Saturday late morning into the afternoon from

every angle. We will hold folks accountable, and that accountability starts atop of the administration with the president of Thomas Jefferson's University, Jim Ryan. This and Jim Ryan's tenure at UVA appears to be his first true botching or mismanagement or scenario where we've seen pretty poor decision making. We'll offer that perspective on today's show. We'll also talk about the tents that became the foundation of riot gear, Virginia State Police on grounds utilizing pepper spray, the show of force, and the arrest of 25 students and others

who are now banned from stepping foot on grounds for the foreseeable future. How, if you live on grounds, that you're banned from grounds, that's a sticky position. Obviously, furthering the sticky position is the fact that we're in the midst of finals week and students have to go on grounds to take their final exams. We have graduation on the near horizon two weekends from now. We wonder if the pro-Palestine protests are going to impact graduation, and if they do, the students that are walking down the aisle and earning diplomas here in Charlottesville will be the same students that were impacted and had their graduations

canceled by COVID just four years ago. A lot we're going to cover on today's program, including the next steps to prevent anything like this from potentially happening again. We're going to ask if the policy put in play when it came to tents on grounds was enough to call in the state police. We're going to ask on this program if Jim Ryan's public relations management talents and Jim Ryan's on-site or day of or protest management skill set needs to be completely revamped. We're going to cover on today's

program the most expensive cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. One of them is here in central Virginia, and no, it's not Charlottesville. We'll give you an update on a story we covered well last week, the aggressive homeless individual that was sleeping in the entrance of draft tap room that dominated our show last week this individual is now no longer at draft tap room not only has he been removed so have his possessions tomorrow at 10 15 a.m we encourage you to tune into the jerry and jerry show as brian o'connor will be in the house in studio, the head baseball coach of the University of Virginia, and will also assess Virginia basketball and its transfer

portal movement. It now has secured one transfer portal commitment, a combo guard from Atlantic Coast Conference rival Florida State. So a lot we're going to cover on today's show, in particular from or through a lens of covering UVA and the University of Virginia. We will get to a storyline that I think by now you know extremely well. A pro-Palestine protest that started on Tuesday of last week initially came out of the gates peaceful. We had students on grounds doing or embodying free speech, their right to protest. Students on grounds utilizing their time for what they thought was best spent protesting terroristic attacks in a war on the

complete other end of the country. Some have called it virtue singling. Others have called it, hey, their freedom, their rights, and what you do in college and this rite of passage from youth into adulthood. We've seen it in decades past, as students have protested the Vietnam War, as students have protested integration, segregation, as students have protested women on campus and the fact that many schools at one time were just for male students and not their female counterparts.

So protesting is nothing new. What is relatively new at the University of Virginia is calling state police in riot gear and spraying student protesters with pepper spray and arresting 25 of them and now banning them from grounds. What is somewhat new is a school president that was missing in action for a long period of time, some would say entirely too long, and others would say he in part is the cause for what happened on Saturday because of mismanagement. An interesting wrinkle for this particular protest is the

minutiae involving tents and the policy and permitting of tents. You go to a tailgate at Scott Stadium and you see pop-up tents everywhere. You see individuals drinking bourbon,

sipping champagne, having chardonnay, drinking beer, eating wings, charcuterie, playing cornhole, and just having a conversation with a pop-up tent as their cover from inclement weather, from the sun, from the rain, from whatever's going on that particular day. Those same tents were utilized on Saturday. And on Saturday, protesters pointed to a poorly written policy or permit, and they said, hey, it looks like these are for recreational purposes. We're allowed to have these. You cannot use these tents as the reason we're not allowed to. You cannot utilize that policy as a reason to kick us out of this protest or to disband the protest because it clearly says tents are allowed on grounds

if used for recreational purposes. An interesting wrinkle here is the policy was rewritten on Saturday on the fly. UVA administration realized the language it had online when then empowered Tim Longo and the University Police Department to go to grounds late Saturday morning and say, actually, the language has changed. And because you have tents up and you're utilizing those bullhorns, you cannot be here anymore. We are disbanding this protest in 10 minutes. A 10-minute deadline. And when students and protesters did not respond favorably to university police, Tim Lonko and his team, they took a step back. They reassessed the situation. And at that point, Jim Ryan and the

University of Virginia thought it was best to call in the Virginia State Police. And a mere few hours later, we saw dozens of Virginia State Police officers, if not a hundred or more, in riot gear, forming a line in conjunction with local police, pushing protesters back and utilizing pepper spray, utilizing the power of perception, the power of perceived force, and the actual arrest of 25 people to disband a protest on grounds. I walked into the studio here on Market Street, where we are 50 yards from the police department, a block removed from the courthouses of Albemarle, the city of Charlottesville, where perhaps those arrested will show up before a judge. And I turned in the studio our television on like I do every day. I changed the channel to CNBC, where I was watching financial content on a network I watch Monday through Friday, generally from 7.30 in the morning to

probably close of market or close of business. And in the 8 a.m. hour today, I watch as Joe Cornyn was talking to one of his guests on one of the morning talk shows on CNBC about the University of Virginia, specifically referencing Charlottesville on four different occasions and the protests from Saturday and the arrests that were made. This is national news yet again. My concern, and we're going to open it up to your opinions, viewers and listeners, we'll also welcome Judah Wickhour to the program. My concern is this is the tip of the iceberg. My concern is this is

something that's going to impact graduation, which is two weekends from now. My concern is protesters will continue the momentum that they have established and be fueled by the national, if not global, media coverage they have earned. My concern is more students will be arrested, and my greatest concern is folks will be hurt and the University of Virginia image or brand will further be tarnished. Saturday was not what you want to see if you are a parent. Saturday is not what you want to see if you are an alum, if you are a fan, if you

are a Charlottesvillian, a Central Virginian, an Albemarle Countian, Saturday is not what you want to see if you are someone that champions freedom of speech, freedom to protest. And Saturday is certainly not someone you want to see, something you want to see, if you back the blue and support police. And I feel I embody all those qualities, often on this program, and it earns me heat and negative attention from folks on the left side of the aisle here in Central Virginia, but I often back police locally with Chief Kachis, locally with Chief Reeves at Albemarle County and his team, and locally with Tim Longo in the University Police Department. I back the police because I know how important the police are to maintaining civil obedience. And yes, on Saturday, we saw civil

disobedience. And I understand that. And I understand on Saturday, we saw civil disobedience. And I understand that. And I understand on Saturday that there was ample opportunity for protesters to take down their tents and to put their bullhorns down and to stop what the university police department asked of them. Do not use tents and don't use bullhorns and we'll leave you alone. I get that. But I'm left asking myself this question. Is justice and the law truly black and white? order that can have interpretation for the long-term or betterment of a community? Could a small blind eye have been turned when it came to a handful of tents and a couple of bullhorns to keep a protest from turning ugly. And if that blind eye was turned, turned for one day to keep a protest from becoming ugly, to keep a protest from needing a riot-geared Virginia State Police from coming to grounds and arresting people, would the community not have been a better place? I understand there's letter of the law, and I understand there's interpretation when it comes to the law.

And it's up to our leaders, whether Jim Ryan, whether Tim Longo, whether Governor Glenn Youngkin, to interpret the law and whether they want to abide by the letter of the law or they want to offer some grace. Examples of grace in this community you see every day. Who goes the speed limit and who goes over it? Examples of grace you see every day. Who's been walking around the downtown mall intoxicated from time to time after a night out or after a concert at the Ting Pavilion? Who's seen people walking down the downtown mall or Market Street or West Main or around grounds while smoking cannabis or marijuana? And who's seen someone run a yellow light that turned to red and clearly was a violation. These are interpretations of how you want to enforce the law. Was enforcing the law to the letter of it, especially a letter of it that came to fruition mere minutes before it was tried to be enforced, was that the

right move? And from my standpoint, and yes, I'm literally Monday afternooning quarterbacking the situation, but from my standpoint, taking a policy that was rewritten on Monday morning and enforcing it at lunchtime on Monday is piss-poor perception management, and it's not what's best for our community. I want to get Judah Wickauer in the mix, then I want to offer you an opportunity to get your comments, your thoughts,

and your perspective into the feed. We're live on every social media platform. I believe, due to Wittkower, we are now live on Rumble, if that is correct. We are live on Rumble. The questions I want to ask. I think we need to start with the man that's paid a million dollars plus in total compensation every year. And that's the president, Jim Ryan. There was a protest that was within 200 yards, 300 yards of the president's mansion where he lives.

And all last week and the week prior and the week prior to that, I asked on this program, why have we heard nothing from Jim Ryan? I said on this talk show, why has there been crickets or silence from Jim Ryan when it comes to the protection of Jewish students on grounds, when it comes to this pro-Palestine protest, and when it comes to the management of his university? And I chalked his silence up to the president of major universities like UVA are now politicians, and they do whatever they can to stay out of the mud,

the muck, out of the day-to-day nuance to protect their professions and their jobs. And I said, that's what Jim Ryan's doing. He's trying to stay out of the day-to-day ops of his university and to preserve the equity that he has built with his personal brand by running 5K races, by running marathons in Boston in support of UVA Children's Hospitals,

by doing Come Join Me for a Run Around Charlottesville in the Mornings, by jumping in swimming pools to celebrate national championships for the swimming and diving teams, by utilizing podcasting and social media to humanize, localize, and personalize his brand. And right now, the equity that Jim Ryan, the president of the University of Virginia, has built through these strategic tactics

is eroding and being whittled down like a number two pencil. Less than 300 yards where he was living, he remained silent until after the Virginia State Police cleared grounds, used pepper spray, forced and arrested 25, but we are to believe students, perhaps others are also in that mix,

but right now we are to believe they are students. Not a good look for the president of the University of Virginia. Fair. It sounds, from the article that I'm looking at, it sounds like this is not going to clear his desk. In fact, I would take it a step further. I'd take it a step further. Is Governor Glenn Youngkin, the man behind the strings, the man behind the screen pulling the puppet strings? And is the man behind the screen, Glenn Youngkin, pulling the puppet strings that are Jim Ryan and Tim Longo? Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia,

has indicated within the last week that he will not allow encampments or protests that impede on community. And that yielded, that statement yielded arrests in Richmond with Virginia Commonwealth University and in Blacksburg at Virginia Tech. Youngkin has political aspirations that far, far exceed Governor of Virginia

with a term that's expiring very soon. We know he can't be the governor again. I would imagine he has his eyes perhaps on a Senate run as he waits for a push for president. I'm curious if the man behind the screen pulling the puppet strings is Yunkin with the puppets in this case, Jim Ryan and Longo, as the fall guys. I do not think this falls on Tim Longo. Longo went to the protesters and offered grace and patience and leash. He went to them and said, on Friday, you can't have tents, but it's raining, and I see that there's children on grounds at this protest.

I'm going to turn an eye and not enforce the letter of the law because the weather is bad and it's cold and you have kids here. I'll come back tomorrow. That's grace and patience and empathy. Then he came back on Saturday morning and he kindly asked protesters to take the tents down and they ignored him. And then he came back again with the revised permit that UVA did on the fly, on the fly as if a burger went out to a customer

with cheddar cheese cooked medium rare and bacon, and the customer says, this has Swiss cheese, and it's raw. And the waiter gets the burger, takes it to the kitchen, the cheese is switched, the burger's put on the flat top, and on the fly comes back out to the customer. Doing it in real time is what Longo did and UVA did with that permit. I don't think this is Tim Longo at all. I think this is either Jim Ryan or Jim Ryan is the fall guy for Glenn Youngkin. Okay. And that's an interesting speculation. Do you have any evidence of that? Did the other schools clearly announce that those were the breaking up of the protests?

Were those clearly labeled as Yunkin-fronted actions? Yunkin explained to everyone that he would not allow tents, encampments, and they would be broken up with the use of the Virginia State Police. Okay. He made that very crystal clear. It's well documented. That led to the arrests of Virginia Tech students and VCU students. I think what's happened here is this crescendoed, unfortunately, in ways that Jim Ryan was unable to manage in real time. And perhaps if President Ryan was out in front of this from the get-go, which he has not been, he has lurked in the shadows as opposed to being on the front line. A good example of this

was the history professors at the University of Virginia. I play squash with one of the history professors that wrote a letter asking for grace for the students that were arrested. Many history professors at the University of Virginia, tenured and non-tenured professors, wrote a letter and signed it with their actual names. And they authored this letter on behalf of their department and their platforms and positions to Jim Ryan and the administration, asking the students to have grace and empathy rewarded or afforded or allocated to them. The 25 arrested. They mention a president, former, of the University of Virginia. Reynolds Hutchinson, the editor of the Daily Progress, also wrote a compelling commentary on the Daily Progress

website about Jim Ryan. He also references former UVA president, was it Shannon? Now Shannon, now the Alderman Library namesake, they rebranded Alderman Library. And they rebranded in honor of this president. His name, I want to confirm, which I will right now, Edgar Shannon. Edgar Shannon, the one-time president of the University of Virginia, now the namesake of Alderman Library. He was the president in May of 1970.

And in May of 1970, students were protesting, students were protesting those who had died at Kent State. And they were approaching his house on Carr's Hill, the president's mansion. And Shannon and his family were inside the mansion. And the students surrounding the mansion on grounds said, we will burn your house down with you and your family in it. And Shannon was seen and left the house and seen on the front lines talking with students, saying, I understand your position.

I feel for you. I empathize for you. I sympathize for you. I relate to where you are at. Literally eyeball to eyeball as you and I are sitting right now in our studio. We did not see that same human connection. We did not see that same outgoing or in-person commitment from Jim Ryan. And as you stay in the background looking for security and safety because you're not on the front lines to potentially protect your personal brand and your profession, your million-dollar-plus compensation package, what happens is you become out of touch of what's going on. And if Jim Ryan was there on the front lines, perhaps on Friday when it was raining,

maybe he would have seen what Tim Longo was seeing, that the protesters were trying to be peaceful. Maybe he would have said, oh my goodness gracious, when I go to football games at Scott Stadium and I watch orange and blue alumni and fans of Tony Elliott and the football team, I see that they have pop-up tents next to their cars as they're sipping champagne, as they're eating charcuterie, as they're having ham biscuits and chicken wings and drinking cold beer. And those pop-up tents are the same tents that are utilized here on Friday night. But was it the same place? Does it matter? It still grounds. If a tent's next to a stadium or a tent's next to a beach volleyball court or a tent is next to the UVA Chapel, does it matter?

It still grounds. I mean, I think it does matter, especially if you've asked people not to put up tents and then been, as you mentioned, graceful with them when the weather turned bad and then asked them, it sounded like they asked them nicely saturday morning to take them down again so you chalk this up to this a permitting process was rewritten on the fly because it was rewritten a couple of minutes beforehand, and that new updated permit was taken to the protesters, that's the leverage they needed to completely disband the protests. And where they didn't listen immediately, they were in the right to pepper spray and arrest.

I mean, I didn't say any of that. I mean, it sounds like you're making a lot of assumptions. Which assumptions are they? I mean, I would need to read something that showed how the permit was changed on Saturday morning. Oh, it's all over. You can go to news.virginia.edu. In fact, I sent you this link. Yeah, I'm looking at it, but I don't see anything about the permit being changed Saturday morning. I can read it verbatim, the article that I sent you. On Saturday at 8 a.m., UVA Police Chief Tim Longo told the group the tents would have to come down or they would be collected by facilities management. The demonstrators became agitated, so the officers disengaged.

Around 11.45 a.m., university police and local officers arrived to tell the demonstrators the group was in violation of university policies and gave the protesters 10 minutes to leave. Police were met with aggression and protesters swung objects at officers. And if you look a few paragraphs down, you will see on Sunday, university leaders fielded several questions about confusion over whether camping tents are allowed on grounds. University officials said camping tents or other recreational tents are not allowed on university property without permits under a policy that has been in place since 2005 and was last revised in 2023 of January. However, the permit application, not the policy itself, contained contradictory language.

According to university officials, a faculty member, one of their own team members, one of their own paid employees, pointed out the discrepancy on Saturday, and the language on the permit application was edited to match the policy the day of. Right. They changed the rules the day of. And the protesters pointed out to the police, the rules say this. And then the police, who were stuck in the middle, said, well, the rules have changed, and now we have to enforce the updated rules,

despite what you're having to be true in your hands. 15 minutes ago was being accurate. Now the rules are different right now. But they had been extremely consistent in asking them not to put up tents previous to this, and as you mentioned, they allowed them to use tents overnight due to the rain. So I don't see how the language on, it sounds like they, you're right, they updated the language on the permit application to match what the policy says. The policy was already in place and has been in place last revised January 2023.

So, yes, there may have been. This is a discrepancy. Yeah. And they fixed the discrepancy. But the fact of the matter is, as I've just said, they have been consistent in telling them that they aren't allowed to put up tents where they are. They have been. They were. They did say that to them in the beginning.

And they've also asked them not to put up signs on trees, which they took down after they put them up. And they asked them not to use bullhorns. And it sounds like some of that was, sounds like they didn't follow what they had been asked to do. And as it says, demonstrators became agitated so the officers disengaged they came back and said look whatever you're doing you can't i don't it's there's not

a whole lot of detail here but the police were met with aggression i mean is that not like the police could have gone if they were met with aggression and protesters swung objects at the officers, I think they did the right thing in calling in outside help. You think the use of Virginia State Police in riot gear with pepper spray was the right move? I didn't say that. But if I was Longo, I'd be like, look, I don't want anything to do with this. If Virginia, if like you suggest, this is all Yunkin. I think this is Yunkin acting in the background.

Well, then Longo's smart. He's like, I don't want to deal with this. If Yunkin wants to toss. I don't even think this is Tim Longo making this call. Okay. I think Tim Longo goes after this happens at, uh, in the early morning on Saturday. And then he says, here's what's going down. And he's told what to do by the president or someone close to Jim Ryan. And then at that point, Longo's reporting, well, they're saying,

look, here's the language online that says we're allowed to have tents for recreational purposes. You know what the irony of this is? On Saturday prior to the Virginia State Police's arrival at the beach volleyball courts a quarter mile away, you know where the beach volleyball courts are by Snyder Tennis Center? Probably. I've probably driven by there before. There's beach volleyball courts kind of catty-corner from where the data science school is going to be,

catty-corner to where the Best Western Hotel is. There's a pop-up tent right next to the beach volleyball courts. Right now? The day of, the morning of, the tents being utilized as the foundation for disbanding the protests. And I understand your point. If you're using tents for protests

and you're using tents for tailgating or you're using tents to shelter yourself from the sun next to a beach volleyball court, those are three different things. And I get that. But if you can't use tents for recreational purposes, can you use tents for tailgating outside football games? I would have to read what they actually have

the language says cannot use the tents anywhere? that's what the language says but that doesn't sound right because if the permit application is a permit for using tents do you get permits and file applications to set up a tent outside Scott Stadium for a tailgate? Or do you just pull your tent out of your car and you pop

it up? I've never done either of those things. I've done them hundreds of times. Okay. And I've been next to people that have done them hundreds of times. I've been going to UVA football games since I was knee-high to my father. And in three generations of UVA and our family, we've never filed a permit to pop up a tent outside Scott Stadium. And I can bet you $1,000 with confidence and conviction that anyone at these tailgates is not filing paperwork or permitting to pitch a tent outside the stadium. Right.

Would you give me that? Sure. I mean, that makes sense. Would you give me that they're not filing permits to pop tents next to beach volleyball courts on grounds on a Saturday morning when they're trying to do some outside hitting and some bump set spiking? Probably not. Okay. It seems to be a lot of either catch-22, a lot of gray area policing, a lot of gray area enforcing, and a lot of uncertainty.

It sounds like wisdom to me. Wisdom? They don't... That's not... Okay, go ahead. They didn't want this to turn into what's going on at other schools. They don't want this becoming... Haven't we become the other schools now?

Maybe, in some small way. Yeah, sure. And you're saying, and viewers and listeners, we'll get to your your comments a matter of moments Ginny Hu will lead with you here she's a Virginia graduate you mean we don't want it to be other schools and that the encampment goes to holding buildings hostages and breaking windows and graffiti and turning into an actual encampment a tent city you will, which we know quite a bit about here in downtown Charlottesville.

Tent town, Sandersville. We'll get to comments. This is Ginny Hu. She's on Twitter. She's a UVA alum. And she makes a good point here. You should also note the tents went up and the bullhorn came out after UVA did not meet the encampment's so-called demands. She makes a very good point. Yeah. I don't think you're telling the whole story. What's that? I don't think you're telling the whole story. Oh, I'm telling the whole story.

One of the encampment demands, in fact, I'm reading from the media arm that's UVA, the permitting thing that you missed. No, I'm looking at it. I saw it, but I think you're mischaracterizing it. We'll agree to disagree on that one. I guess we will. I think you are mischaracterizing it, sir. What? Respectfully.

Terribly mischaracterizing. Calling state police spray painting students with pepper spray. Wisdom. You just called that wisdom. No, I didn't. Not even slightly. I want to hear this now.

You just said banning the encampment with how they did was wisdom. Yeah. I'm not sure how you conflate that with me saying, with alleging that I said that state police... How they banned the encampment was through pepper spray and show of force in arresting. But, okay, well, then you didn't understand what I said.

Well, I guess try again, because I would imagine others are also in the ballpark that I am in. Okay, well, all I meant, and I'm not sure how you took it a different way, all I meant is that telling them that they can't have tents there because they don't want this to become a larger issue where it becomes a tent town is wise. But they didn't tell them that. Okay, what? They forced them out of a tent town by pepper spraying them. I'm talking about university police and the fact that we've been agreeing for this entire conversation that the police, the UVA police, have been telling the protesters that they can't have tents up for days.

The UVA police were not the folks that disbanded the encampment. I'm not sure why you keep bringing this back to disbanded the encampment. I'm not sure why you keep bringing this back to disbanding the encampment by the state police. That's not what I'm talking about. Okay. But how the encampment was disbanded was the participants were pepper sprayed, and those that didn't follow suit quickly were handcuffed, arrested, and dragged to jail. Yeah. Okay. That's how the encampment was disbanded.

Right. Okay. It was not a peaceful disbandment. I never said it was. Okay. So we're in agreement there. It's the state police who disbanded the encampment. Right.

They're the ones that came in on Saturday and took people away. Yeah. Okay. So just want to be here. To get to Ginny Hu's point, the demands the encampment insisted upon, some of the demands were going to be met. For instance, the University of Virginia's foundation, the group that manages the $13.6 billion, the investment team, they were willing to communicate with protesters about how funds from the endowment were being allocated to activities or investments in Israel. They were willing to communicate.

That was one of the demands. Another one of the demands by the protest group, and I don't want to speak for Judah on this because it's a touchy subject. This is a hot subject. But another one of the demands from the protest group was completely eradicating or erasing or no longer offering any kind of programming when it comes

to Israel, whether language, whether history, any curriculum at all. And that demand, I will be straightforward, I think is lunacy. Yeah, I think it's utterly unhinged. It's lunacy. And that's like asking the University of Virginia if you're going to say we're not going to have any curriculum or any language or any kind of teachings when it comes to Israel. That was one of their demands that they made on. It goes much farther than that. That's like saying we're not going to have any teaching at all when it comes to Nazis or Hitler. We're not going to have any teachings at all when it comes to Al-Qaeda and 9-11. We're not going to have any teachings at all when it comes to Iraq and the Persian Gulf War. I mean, it goes so much farther

than just what they're teaching. It says right here, to terminate study abroad programs, fellowships, research collaborations, and other collaborations with Israeli academic institutions that have nothing whatsoever to do with what's going on in Gaza and Israel. And that's synonymous with terminating fellowship abroad with Germany. Would compromise our commitment to academic freedom and our obligation to enabling the free exchange of ideas on grounds, both of which are bedrock values of the university. I mean, it's unhinged to think that they're just going to stop anything and everything that has to do with Israel.

You're right. But I think it goes much further than just what they're teaching at UVA. So after the demands were not completely met, they pulled out the bullhorns. The tents were there on Friday. There's an incredibly, incredibly many elements to unpack from this storyline. We should consider Jim Ryan's spot here. I'll ask you directly. Do you think Jim Ryan handled this well? No, you're right. I think he should have had a stronger hand,

a more upfront part and position in all of what was going on here. It's a bad look all around. Nobody came out of this looking good. Why did Jim Ryan wait so long? And here's another thing, a wrinkle that came up after Jim Ryan waited so long that then he issued a statement. He said, we became aware that there were other people in the protest group that were essentially outsiders. Okay. Jim Ryan, in his official, his only statement with this, said we became aware

that there were other people in this protest group that were basically outsiders, not students or professors or folks tied to the Charlottesville community. That is such a loaded statement. And that's the only inkling he offered of outsiders. The only insight offered of outsiders. What does he mean by that? He probably means some... Is this like a George Soros thing? Is this like, oh, a lot of these pro-Palestine groups are funded and capitalized by Hamas itself?

Is this folks from outside the Charlottesville community? Is this folks from other college campuses? Are these students from Virginia Tech or VCU? Are these folks that are Antifa? Are these folks that are militant? Are these folks that are coming into the community for political purposes to make this another Charlottesville 2.0? I think that's the issue. And the problem is that it's not like you can just card them and find out what organization they're with. President Ryan realized that there were outside agitators involved, that this was no longer just a UVA student-run protest. Or is that a statement that's easy to use to back your moves? Speculation.

Is it speculation that there were outside protesters that not provide anything else? Say that again? How can a president say we heard that there were outside people involved in the protest and not literally offer any other insight besides that one line? That's called trying to manage perception, what he's doing there. Okay. By putting in the line, there were folks outside of the community involved in the protest and that worried us. That has our minds going

in a thousand different directions. That's a strategic position, a strategic line to add in a statement. Don't you think more insight should be provided on who these folks are? Certainly, but you're asking on a very short time frame for them to identify who... Short time frame? It's been 48 plus hours since the protest, and we haven't had anything offered from Ryan. Right. He could have done this all day Sunday. And all today.

Okay. Okay. Bob Yarbrough, King of Redfields. Outside agitators is an old go-to that hearkens to the position Southern leaders took during the Civil Rights era. It's a strategy to utilize the term Outside Agitators. He also says this. He's a former award-winning journalist, Bob Yarborough, a man I trust. I was there out of my journalistic instincts and because I knew it was important as a community member to bear witness. There were few folks there until law enforcement arrived. I watched as hundreds of folks gathered to support or watch or observe or counter protests.

This crowd absolutely does not assemble without this police state presence. They cleared the tents. I thought it was over. That's why they were there. I thought the police would stop there and in fact told a news person from CBS 19 there was no way they would continue clearing the space and macing folks. They do not. It was dispiriting, sad, and delusional. If you want to check it out, I posted a photo of Virginia State Police mowing down peacefully protesting folks on Instagram.

My handle is at BobYAR2. At B-O-B-Y-A-R-2. Backing what I'm saying here. I'm the first on this. I'll take a step back. What we've created with the I Love Seville Network is a platform of influence that reaches people every day. And because we're consistent with us going on air

Monday through Friday at 12.30 p.m. for years, we've become kind of part of people's days or appointment content, if you may. And that level of consistency creates influence. I'm not saying we're the loudest or the most followed or the most impactful. All I'm saying is we have a platform because we consistently do it Monday through Friday at the same time, and people have grown to expect it. And with this platform, I have been very vocal about backing and supporting police.

Would you agree? Routinely say on the show, I back police and back blue. Routinely celebrate and champion the police chiefs Longo, Reeves, and Cotches that I think make Charlottesville, UVA, and Alamaro County very safe to live within, run a business within, and raise my family within. I feel comfortable here. But when you have officers of the law standing in front of you in a line as if it was a barrier or a fence, in riot gear, barking and yelling, spraying pepper spray, it's going to cause human behavior that is not regular or normal.

And that human behavior that's not regular or normal could be behavior of fear. It should be behavior of retreat and leave the scene. But it creates behavior of unpredictability. Because our instinct is not one that's predicated or trained on militants showing force and spraying gas that hurts us in our faces. And people respond differently. And they respond differently based on their psychology, their past experiences, maybe

the conversation that they have with their family or their friends or their better half that day. And those in-the-moment reactions are going to be reactions of unpredictability. Because everyone's different. In having a hundred or so, whatever the number

is, I don't have an exact number, lined up shoulder to shoulder with militant attire barking and screaming and showing perceived force and spraying harmful gas is the last position you want to be in a community that's come so far with healing from August 12, 2017. August 12, 2017, by far a much darker day than what we saw on Saturday. But still the community has not healed from A12 2017.

And when we have the photos and the video or the in-person experiences that we saw at this protest on Saturday morning on grounds, it erodes the healing that's happened between August 12, 2017 and now. And that's a problem I have because I think the community is trying to turn the corner. Just like when we give interpretive grace with the speed limit and interpretive grace with running a red light and interpretive grace with walking out of a bar and walking up and down the downtown mall while stumbling and appearing intoxicated, or interpretive grace when leaving Coops or the Biltmore at last call and walking to your dorms while stumbling. I've been in that

position so many times. Walking by Dwayne Jones at one time, who's the corner police officer on the UVAB, who now I believe is a lieutenant with the Charlottesville Police Department. And Officer Jones, so many times when students would walk by him on the corner after a last call, and he could clearly see they were intoxicated, showed interpretive grace with policing the letter of the law. He could have every single time said, you're drunk in public, you're arrested. You're staggering. You're walking out of a bar.

It's two in the morning. I can arrest you for public intoxication. But he did not. He interpreted the law. That same tactic or strategy could have been utilized on Saturday to keep, I don't know what the number is of Virginia State Police and riot gear pepper spraying people. And maybe Jim Ryan had that influence and did not use it. Or maybe he did not. But we don't know because Ryan's not saying anything.

He's the guy, who is it from the book or from TV or a show, the guy in the Iron Castle? Are you referencing something specific? Maybe mixing pop culture references there. The guy in the iron castle overlooking everything from his safe vantage point. 100, 200 yards away. Anyway. I'll close on this and then you jump in anywhere you want to go.

Anywhere you want to go. I won't interrupt you. And I apologize that I did. I don't even, I don't, I was mentioning this to my wife on Saturday. Actually, I was mentioning this to my wife on Saturday, and that on Sunday morning, I was playing squash with one of the history professors that signed this letter. And there was another group of guys, many of them alum, that were in this group. There was like 15 of us. No, there was like 10 of us. I don't recognize the University

of Virginia, today's version of the University of Virginia anymore. I mentioned this to my father on Sunday afternoon while speaking to my mom and I, while I was speaking to my mom and my dad on the phone. I try to catch up with them once a week. I don't recognize today's version of UVA. Today's version of the University of Virginia is so much more focused on politics, protests, posturing, positioning, proclaiming,

then right of passage, high school senior to young professional, a passage that comes with partying and textbooks and significant others and broken hearts and love and moving and finding different places to live and joining different groups and meeting different kinds of people. It's just a completely different university. And I highlighted on previous shows that change in UVA ideology or that change in UVA's student base,

that change in what the makeup of the student is today, is having a direct cause and effect on Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Not only in real time, but as those students graduate and come back to Charlottesville and Albemaro County with the same ideology they had as students. And that's why you see a Charlottesville and Alamaro urban ring that is what it is now. All right. We have other items out of the notebook. Anywhere you want to go, the show is yours. Well, I think that the students have probably changed the most since your time there.

I think the school is and always has been a corporation concerned with its money. I'm sure it's always been political in some regard, whether or not it's just keeping out of politics. But I think that, like I said, nobody came out of this looking good. It's a shame that it happened. But as I said before, they had been told the rules that they were being asked to follow repeatedly. And it's a shame that the state police were brought in and that people were tear gassed. But it seems to me like at the point it was Saturday probably neither President Ryan nor

Chief Longo wanted to wait in there with these people and if they started to see people coming in from outside whether or not that's a bogus claim or not I'm not going to get into this because I just don't have the information. I think

they probably did the smart thing and wiped their hands of the affair and let state police do what they're going to do. Whether or not they make a statement about it, who knows. Do you think Jim Ryan is going to make a statement about it? I would be surprised if he eventually did not make a statement. I'm sure he probably will at some point make a statement.

Are statements still valuable if they don't happen in real time or around the event? To me, they are. They might not be to you, but I would prefer a statement that is made with as much information as possible rather than just putting out some blanket statement about whatever that doesn't cover the problems that were going on here. And I don't understand all of the decisions that were made. If there were people coming in from outside of UVA and causing problems, if they were the people that were attacking, I use that term loosely, if they're the ones that were attacking the UVA police, you know, something had to be done.

They've got, as you mentioned, they've got finals coming up. They've got, obviously, a graduation. Do you think banning 25 students from stepping foot on grounds ever again is the right punishment? Are they, is it 100%? No, they're banned right now. That can be lifted. That's part of what the history professors are asking. Have you read that?

Is it in this article? No. No. There's much other things besides the article I sent you. I'm sure there are. Yeah. And it would be nice. All available online.

Yeah. And if you'd sent me a little more of that, then maybe I would have. I read it over the weekend prior to arriving to work that's great because it's an impactful turn of events for the community i live in that's great um i doubt they're going to be banned forever that seems That seems oddly excessive. What would be more oddly excessive? Banning an arrested student from grounds for perpetuity during finals and one week before or 10 days, 12 days before graduation.

And perpetuity means forever. Oh, I know. Okay. I'm very well aware of what that means. Banning students that were arrested from grounds and arresting them for trespassing if they show up on grounds again during finals week

when they live on grounds and all their stuff is on grounds, including their clothes and their bed, 12 days before graduation, are utilizing riot gear and pepper spray to disband a group of kids because of tents and bullhorns. And potentially attacking police.

You're asking which is... I would like to see the video. And this is someone who backs police more than anyone. I would like to see actual video of police that were attacked. Yeah, so would I. I would like to see actual video of police that were attacked. Yeah, so would I. I would like to see that. Because I've seen the video. I've seen the video of pepper spray. I've seen the video of riot gear and show of force

and the pitting down by multiple folks of students on grounds, on the ground itself, on the grass itself, and taking them in handcuffs to arrest them. I've seen that video. I'd like to see the alternative video. Yeah, so would I. Okay.

Because the extent of that is the media arm that is the University of Virginia. Publishing something on its branded website as justification for its actions. Which is what you've read from UVA Today, which I'm holding right now. Yeah.

That's the extent of what you've read on this, is what you've said. Yeah, for the most part. I mean, I've heard some of what... Because I've spent a dozen hours on this reading and watching video already. Okay. Including the day of. Time will tell. This is an interesting tidbit that's come up in relation to the I Love Civo show. Bob Yarbrough says, he was deep amongst the crowd of protesters.

The primary person I saw parading back and forth appeared to be a counter-protester, a man wearing a U.S. flag-like shirt who walked right in front of the police line. If you watch some of the videos that were done from the protests, there was a man in an American flag shirt that was walking. If the police line, I'm going to show my arm on screen, if this is the line of Virginia State Police in riot gear with the pepper spray, there was a man walking literally in front of the line back and forth in an American flag shirt. I saw that too, Bob Yarborough. Interestingly,

friend of the program, David Trecorici, the owner of Skuma Boutique Dispensary, he posted one day ago on his Facebook page, and I'll read it verbatim. If you saw me on the live broadcast at UVA, I walked end to end of the police riot shield line. I was wearing my American flag polo. My intention was to project the remembrance of our most essential right, free speech.

The man that was walking line-to-line in front of the riot-geared police from Virginia, the state police, was David Tricarici as he has posted on his Facebook page. And that's not me doxing anyone. That's he openly saying this on Facebook and I follow him. One other item that I want to highlight for this. One other item is the mask-wearing nature of the protesters. The protesters in my book would be best served not hiding behind masks.

And I'll leave it at that. They were told and instructed by protesters, by protest leadership, that they needed to not release their identity nor unmask themselves? I mean, it's actually a law. What is a law? Not wearing a mask during a protest like this. Virginia has a law aimed at hate groups like the KKK prohibiting the wearing of face coverings in public except for theatrical or medical device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer to be or appear in any public place or

upon any private property in this commonwealth without first having obtained from the owner or tenant thereof consent to do so in writing. And that's the point I was trying to make. Yeah, I mean. Wearing a mask while protesting has a very ugly and documented history. Again, I'm not really surprised by the evidence that I've seen. I'm not really surprised that there was backlash

from police agencies. I still don't agree. I think it's, like I said, this is terrible on all sides. But Holly Foster in Henrico. It will be sad if graduation is canceled due to this protest like it has been at Columbia and USC, Maine graduation only. At the University of Michigan with graduation, in the midst of graduation, protesters interrupted the graduation walking down the center aisle of graduation with students and their parents flocked on either side of the aisles. Yeah. And that was at University of Michigan. Yeah. This is the tip

of the iceberg, ladies and news seems so trivial. A couple of updates I want to give. We talked about this last week. The gentleman that was sleeping in the, why don't we save the cities with the most expensive homes in Virginia until tomorrow? With it being 147. So we can save that headline for tomorrow. cities with the most expensive homes in Virginia until tomorrow, with it being 147. So we can save that headline for tomorrow.

The cities with the most expensive homes in Virginia, there's one of them in central Virginia, and it's not the city of Charlottesville. I do want to encourage all viewers and listeners, Brian O'Connor will be in the studio tomorrow, the head baseball coach at the University of Virginia, on the Jerry and Jerry show at at 10 15 a.m. I think that's going to be pretty fantastic. Brian O'Connor is always a compelling interview. UVA basketball also got its first transfer portal commitment. It's a combo guard from Florida State in ACC rival. This guy's six foot seven, plays defense, has got a lot of

starting experience. He can play either the point guard or the two-guard spot. Congratulations to Tony Bennett on his first transfer portal commitment. And the gentleman who was sleeping in draft tap room, which we brought attention to because both Judah and I have had pretty negative interactions with him. He's aggressive and antagonistic. Unfortunately, does not seem to be very mentally stable. He, for weeks, if not longer, was living in the entryway to draft taproom,

sleeping on what appeared to be a cot with some sleeping bags and his personal belongings behind him. I walked by there today and noticed everything had been cleared out. For the first time at what? How would you estimate? Oh, weeks. Yeah, at least a few weeks. Yeah. LinkedIn, John Blair. Jerry, that is a powerful commentary and I agree with most of it. I have one additional question. Last Sunday night, in the middle of the night,

Virginia Tech and Virginia State Police executed 82 arrests in a very peaceful manner. No confrontations, no near riots. How did one state university not look at another state university on how to do this? Why do it in the middle of a Saturday with law enforcement looking very aggressive? And then he said, it might be nice if Judah could post the photo of this story about the tech situation. Notice how people look. And he's got a link from Cardinal News that I'm looking at it. And what he's highlighting in the story of how people look, I'll hold it on screen.

I can DM you the link, Judah. It's on LinkedIn, right? It's in the comment section. It probably would be easier if I DM you. John's point is there's 82 people arrested at Virginia Tech. There were 25 in Charlottesville. And the 82 that were arrested

looked like this with police surrounded by them what do you see there? it's a little I'm not really sure what I see there's somebody with is that something wrapped around her shoulders? what he's highlighting is peace.

Oh, yeah. Which goes back to how this was managed. Yeah. 82, you had more than 3X, over 3X the amount of arrests at Virginia Tech. And those were done in peace. Who were those arrests by? Was that state police or was it... State police.

The governor has made a statement that encampments and protests will not impact community life. And if they do, the state police will be called. He's highlighting the differences with how these arrests were done and those in Charlottesville. Yeah. All right. There were a lot of comments I didn't get to today. And I apologize if I was unable to read your comment. I think you got two different views here from Judah and I,

and there are no right answers. It's just how you interpret the circumstances. Yeah, I think a lot of this is still speculation right now. We can agree that this is a pretty bad look for the University of Virginia. And in turn, a very challenging look for Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Central Virginia. The show today was indicative of what we want our shows to be.

A water cooler of conversation where we offer perspective that gets you thinking. That is the Monday edition of the I Love Seville show. And thanks to Judah, we were now live today on a new social media platform, Rumble. Rumble. Rumble. We are now platform, Rumble. Rumble. Rumble. We are now live on Rumble. Rumble with their logo looks kind of like a green guitar pick. So that's what?

All 15 Facebook pages, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, later on Instagram, YouTube, Rumble, iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Fountain, Amazon Music. I'm losing count. Más y menos. What's that? Más y menos. Más o menos.

Judah Wittkower did an excellent job today. For Judah, my name is Jerry Miller, and this is the I Love Seville Show on a Monday. So long.ありがとうございました Thank you.