Expecting violence from the counter-protesters. Update to this previous story.
Via WISTV
All classes have been canceled for Friday at Valdosta State University, in anticipation of large crowds at a rally to support the American flag.
Nearly 4,000 flag supporters are scheduled to attend, according to a “Flags Over VSU” event page on Facebook.
It’s a response to an incident one week earlier when a veteran disrupted a group of students who were walking on an American flag during a protest.
Veteran Michelle Manhart was seen on video taking the flag from protestors and refusing to return it.
Manhart was eventually detained by university police and given a warning. She was then banned from the campus.
Since the initial demonstration, the university had also received various threats on social media from alumni, parents of future students, and community members threatening to withdraw support from the university because of the protest.
University President William McKinney asked students, faculty, and staff to join in dedicating Friday, April 24 as a “Day of Reaffirmation.”[…]
The university also confirmed on Tuesday that that a man brought a gun onto campus in a backpack during student protests.
Officials said “unmistakable evidence” links that gun to one man, Eric Sheppard.
They believe Sheppard is in hiding, and somewhere away from campus.[…]
In a video uploaded to YouTube on Monday, Eric Sheppard explained to onlookers why he and other protesters walked on the American Flag.
“That flag represents white supremacy racism which is plaguing the entire earth, so when we step on that flag we are stepping on racism, white supremacy. We are stepping on the things that were erected alongside our genocide and our holocaust,” he said.
“I am a terrorist toward lies. I’m a terrorist toward liars. I’m a terrorist toward those that are wicked, so yes, I am a terrorist toward white people,” Sheppard also said.
A judge issued an arrest warrant for Sheppard on Tuesday.