On October 24, a student casually vandalized the material at a Turning Point USA table at the University of Michigan.
Fortunately, TPUSA Chapter President Austin McIntosh was able to film the incident.
During the nearly five-minute video, the vandal rips material out of the hands of a conservative student, and dumps a bowl of candy on the ground. He also takes bags of cookies and a poster-board sign about free speech, and tosses them in a nearby trash bin.
“Recording me don’t make me feel no type of way, so you can keep doing it,” the vandal says.
“The police will like it, though,” McIntosh replies.
When a conservative female student tells the vandal that it’s “against the law” to steal, he replies: “You know what’s also against the law? Hate speech.”
As the conservative students call him out on his “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the vandal continues to steal items from the table, and tear posters, tossing it all in the trash.
At one point, a female student wearing an orange hoodie approaches and appears to defend the vandal’s behavior. Meanwhile, McIntosh simply trolls the vandal and his defender.
The Daily Wire reached out to McIntosh for comment.
“I didn’t know who it was at first, and the police said they couldn’t really do anything until we figured out who it was,” McIntosh told The Daily Wire. “On Friday, I walked into one of my classes, and the guy who did it walked right in. My mind was blown.”
McIntosh then looked up his class list online, and figured out the vandal’s name.
As for what was running through his mind when the vandal was destroying TPUSA property, McIntosh said that he was “angry,” and that he wanted to “defend” his materials. However, “knowing campus climate and the university’s stance on self defense,” he knew he couldn’t really do anything.
“Through meetings with some university officials, I was told if I would’ve gotten physical with him, I would’ve been subject to punishment even though I was defending my stuff,” McIntosh said.
After a moment, he decided to focus on filming the incident for evidentiary purposes, as well as to document “how polarized we are, and how intolerant the Left is on campus.”
“I feel like the Left is so intolerant of other ideas, other beliefs, and intellectual diversity,” McIntosh stated. “They can’t stand to hear another opinion.”
Following the incident, McIntosh called the police, who reportedly chased the vandal until he got away from them.
McIntosh later met with Sarah Daniels, associate dean of students, as well as Robbie Abdelhoq, the formal conflict resolution pathways program manager for the Office of Student Conflict Resolution, who allegedly told the TPUSA leader that the vandal could be made to take “an anger management class, or write an apology letter.”
McIntosh wants more than that. He told The Daily Wire that there should be “restitution” for the damaged and discarded materials, and perhaps “suspension” for the vandal.
In addition to the vandal allegedly dropping out of his class with McIntosh, the university put in place a “no contact order,” prohibiting the vandal from making contact with McIntosh “or any of the other people who were at that table that day.”
When asked what he expects is going to happen going forward, McIntosh stated:
On the university side of things, I honestly don’t expect much. There have been other situations on our campus, like intolerance toward conservative students, and they don’t seem to do a whole lot. I think it starts at the top. Look at President [Mark] Schlissel – he sent out emails when Donald Trump won about how he thought it was ironic that conservative students felt targeted or harassed on campus. I don’t think the university is very protective of their conservative minority students on campus. At most, my guess is that they’re going to put him in some sort of anger management class, but I’ll be pushing for suspension and restitution.
Even if the university doesn’t do as McIntosh hopes, the police appear to be moving forward.
An investigator on the case sent the following message to a TPUSA representative: “The case has been sent to the prosecutor’s office. I expect charges next week, however cannot divulge any charges or other details until the subject is arraigned, per Michigan law.”